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THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK - BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA 
MELBOURNE 

THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 



THE GOSPEL STORY 
IN ART 



BY 

JOHN LA FAROE 



WITH EIGHTY FULL PAGE PLATES 



HtfD gorfe 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

jill rights reserved 



W^o 



so 



L^ 



Copyright, 1913, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and electrotyped. Published November, 1913. 



NorfaooB 33wBa 

J. S. Gushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. 

Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 



sT^ 



:CI,AG57730 



PREFACE 

For many years before the present volume was actu- 
ally begun John LaFarge had cherished the wish to write 
a book on the representation of the Christian story in 
art, a work for which few men were so well fitted. Born 
and educated in the older faith of Christendom, he 
brought to his task not only the reverence of a believer, 
but also full knowledge of the widely different forms 
through which the life of Christ has been expressed by 
artists. He was familiar with the classic writings of the 
Western and the older Eastern world, and with the 
legends and traditions told from father to son by the fire- 
sides of Europe, or among the islands of the South Sea. 

Through early study he so trained his eye and mind 
that after fifty years he could recall the composition and 
colouring of a picture. He did not, however, trust to 
his memory wholly, and in almost every instance the 
painting or sculpture mentioned in the following pages 
was described with an engraving or photograph beside 
him. The originals could not all be reproduced, but 
those omitted are brought before us by his comprehen- 
sive words. 

Much of this, his last work, was dictated, with fre- 
quent intervals due to pain or weariness, and the end 
came before he could give it the searching and minute 
revision he would have wished to bestow upon it. No 
other hand could supply this lack, and the work 



vi PREFACE 

remains substantially as its author left it. A friendship 
of many years has led the present writer to do what was 
necessary to prepare the manuscript for printing ; some 
errors due to the copyist have been removed (though it 
can scarcely be hoped that all of these have been de- 
tected), a few references have been supplied, an occa- 
sional repetition excised, and finally the material has 
been rearranged in accordance with a plan outlined by 
the author. 

To this brief note of introduction may fittingly be 
added the last words of an intended preface which was 
not completed : "The lesson to ourselves in these pages, 
which contain the record of impressions, at times con- 
tradictory, by men even more various than their work, 
is that we cannot know all the notes in the great song 
of the human soul. Nor can we now know whose were 
the hands that first worked ; perhaps, as the poets tell us, 
we shall know them through some discovery, or at least 
in another world. Art was called by the Greeks a vir- 
tue ; we may imagine, then, that the impressions of the 
bodily vision and of the earthly execution have passed 
away, and only the thought and intention remains." 

MARY CADWALADER JONES. 

September, 1913. 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Preface v 



Introducti 



ON 



CHAPTER I 
Heliodorus 6 

CHAPTER II 
The Prophets and Sibyls 19 

CHAPTER III 
The Angels 63 

CHAPTER IV 
Joachim and Anna. The Presentation of the Virgin. 

The Marriage of the Virgin 78 

CHAPTER V 
The Annunciation 103 

CHAPTER VI 
The Nativity. The Adoration of the Magi . . .119 

CHAPTER VII 
The Presentation of Christ in the Temple. The Flight 

INTO Egypt. The Repose in Egypt . . . .151 



viii CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VIII 
The Dispute in the Temple. The Baptism of Christ . 165 

CHAPTER IX 
The Preaching of John the Baptist. The Death of 

John. The Temptation of Christ . . . .180 

CHAPTER X 
The Woman of Samaria. The Prodigal Son . . . 194 

CHAPTER XI 
Christ in the House of Mary and Martha. The Mar- 
riage OF Cana 205 

CHAPTER XII 

The Entry into Jerusalem. Christ bids Farewell to 

his Mother. The Last Supper. The Washing of 
Feet. The Dispute of the Eucharist . . . 219 

CHAPTER XIII 
The Agony in the Garden. The Betrayal. Christ 

BEFORE CaIAPHAS. JuDAS RECEIVES HIS PaY. ThE RE- 
PENTANCE OF Judas 243 

CHAPTER XIV 
Christ before Pilate. The Denial of Peter. Christ 

PRESENTED TO THE PeOPLE. PiLATE WASHES HIS HaNDS. 

The Flagellation of Christ. Ecce Homo . . 259 

CHAPTER XV 
The Man of Sorrows. The Passion of Christ . .271 



CONTENTS ix 

CHAPTER XVI 

FACE 

The Crucifixion 283 

CHAPTER XVn 
The Deposition and Entombment . . ■ . . . 335 

CHAPTER XVHI 
The Descent into Limbus. The Resurrection. The Ap- 
pearance OF Christ to the Magdalen . . . 379 

CHAPTER XIX 
The Journey to Emmaus. The Ascension. The Pente- 
cost 396 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Pilate Washing his Hands 

Heliodorus. Raphael 

Heliodorus. Delacroix 

The Libyan Sibyl. Michael Angelo 

The Prophet Jeremiah. Michael Angelo 

The Delphic Sibyl. Michael Angelo 

The Cumcean Sibyl. Michael Angelo 

The Erythrsean Sibyl. . Michael Angelo 

The Prophet Ezekiel. Michael Angelo 

The Prophet Isaiah. Michael Angelo 

The Prophet Jonah. Michael Angelo 

The Virgin Crowned by Angels. Botticelli 

The Assumption of the Virgin. Botticell 

The Nativity. Botticelli 

The Sacrifice of Manoah. Rembrandt 

The Sacrifice of Joachim. Giotto 

The Presentation of the Virgin. Sodoma 

The Presentation of the Virgin. Carpaccio 

The Presentation of the Virgin. Titian . 

The Marriage of the Virgin. Giotto 

The Marriage of the Virgin. Luini . 

The Annunciation. Fra Angelico (at Cortona) 

The Annunciation. Fra Angelico (at Florence) 

The Annunciation. Donatello 

The Nativity. Giotto 



Frontispiece ■ 

PAGE 

iiy 
15^ 

23^ 
29, 

3Sy 
39^ 
43^ 
47. 

59-^ 
65. 
69^ 
73. 

85. 
89. 

93.' 
97- 

lOI. 

107, 
III. 

IIS 

125/ 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



The Adoration of the Magi. Fra Angelico 

Detail from the Adoration of the Magi. Gozzoli 

Angels — Detail from the Adoration of the Magi. Gozzoli 

The Adoration of the Magi. Correggio .... 

The Adoration of the Magi. Rembrandt 

The Presentation of Christ in the Temple. Giotto . 

The Flight into Egypt. Delia Quercia .... 

The Repose in Egypt. Correggio 

The Baptism of Christ. El Greco 

The Preaching of John the Baptist. Rembrandt 
The Death of John the Baptist. Donatello 
The Temptation of Christ. Tintoretto 



Christ and the Woman of Samaria. Phil: 

The Prodigal Son. Rembrandt 

Christ in the House of Mary and Martha 

The Marriage at Cana. Veronese . 

The Last Supper. Da Vinci 

The Last Supper. Moretto 

The Washing of Feet. Giotto . 

The Dispute of the Eucharist. Raphael 

The Agony in the Garden. Ferrari . 

The Betrayal of Christ. Giotto 

The Betrayal of Christ. Van Dyck . 

The Payment of Judas. Giotto 

The Denial of Peter. Rembrandt . 

The Man of Sorrows. Velasquez 

Christ Supported by Saint Francis. Mur 

The Crucifixion. Giotto . 

Detail from the Crucifixion. Mantegna 

The Crucifixion. Fra Angelico 

The Crucifixion. Luini . . . , 



ppe de Champaigne 



Tintoretto 



PAGE 

129 V 
133 V 
137- 
141 

14s » 
153 i 
157^ 
i6iy 

177^ 

181 V 

185 s/ 

189 

199 

203 
209 

2i5y 

223v/ 
229v 
233. 
237.' 

241 V 

247... 
251 V 
255. 
261. 

273^ 
293. 

297' 
301 1 

30s V 
309 ' 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Griinwaldt 
Griinwaldt 



Rubens 



The Crucifixion. Signorelli 
The Crucifixion. Velasquez 
Detail from the Crucifixion. 
Detail from the Crucifixion. 
The Crucifixion. Tintoretto 
The Elevation of the Cross. 

The Deposition. Donatello 

The Deposition. French Ivory of the Xlllth Century 
The Deposition. Van der Weyden .... 
The Entombment. Quentin Matsys 
The Deposition. Michael Angelo .... 

The Entombment. Ferrari 

The Deposition. Rembrandt ..... 
The Descent into Limbus. Sodoma .... 
The Resurrection. Titian . . . . . 

The Resurrection. Tintoretto 

The Appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalen. Le Sueur 
The Appearance of Christ to Mary Magdalen. Rembrandt 
Christ as a Pilgrim. Fra Angelico . 
The Feast of the Pharisee. Moretto 
The Supper at Emmaus. Rembrandt 
The Ascension. Giotto . 
The Pentecost. Giotto 
The Pentecost. Bordone . 



PAGE 

321 

3 25 J 

329, 

333' 

341 

347 

353, 

357 

363, 

369 

373] 

377 

381. 

385 

389 

393 

397 

401 

405. 
409 
413= 
415- 



INTRODUCTION 

As a boy at college I was reading the Greek Testament, 
and was suddenly taken aback by the difficulty of bringing 
two associations — the one Jewish and the other Greek — 
together and then separating them again. The New 
Testament writer in Greek was obliged to use pagan 
words for his Jewish and Christian ideas. He had no 
choice. So, when the Jewish preacher talked in Greek on 
matters of spiritual connection between the visible world 
and another, almost all his words had meanings which 
were not really his own, and which did not represent 
the Jewish descent of thought. If it were so with the 
words he used, how much more so it must have been 
with any attempt on his part to make pictures or statues 
representing or symbolizing his ideas. And so, when he 
first began to make pictures of religious subjects, Christian 
ones, he used pagan symbols, that is to say, those belong- 
ing to people around him, and his way of drawing and 
painting is exactly like that of the most abominable 
idolatries and immoral representations. The same 
painters who have left us the frescoes of the catacombs, 
where they buried their friends in Christian peace, must in 
the light of day have worked on the walls of their non- 
Christian friends upon the paintings which we see in the 
palaces, or in the ruins of Pompeii and Heraculaneum. 

There is another difficulty introduced ; the artist may 
not express himself easily and completely ; his art is not 
an adequate means. He may be a saint, he may be Paul 



2 INTRODUCTION 

himself, or even John, and not be a good painter. These 
considerations should make us hesitate about any too 
close and narrow views as to the exact limits between 
what our vagueness of words calls "Christian Art" and 
"Pagan Art." Perhaps it may be well again to re- 
member that race has much to do with the apprecia- 
tion of works which, in the art of painting or writing, 
are meant to carry a religious sentiment. For instance, 
the Spaniards have painted wonderful religious paintings, 
or carved wonderful statues, and to some of us, as to the 
Spaniard, they carry an extraordinary amount of religious 
feeling. Tradition tells us that these artists were deeply 
religious in their lives and thought, and yet, to some 
types, such as certain English people, or some accurate 
and casuistic Frenchmen, their love of humanity, their 
splendour of sympathy, would not be sufficiently proper 
and prudish for men and women brought up in nar- 
rower ways, and also (and it is worth noting) in a more 
worldly manner, for the mark of the Spaniard is un- 
worldliness. 

So we may turn with safety to the earliest pictorial 
representations and feel that their paganism is merely 
the necessity of the painter of that date. His symbolism 
was all ready, for what we call "mythological representa- 
tion" represents an idea by symbols. There are a num- 
ber of these symbolic renderings, among them being the 
famous one of the Shepherd carrying the Lamb, and also 
another in one of the sacramental chapels of the Cata- 
comb of Calixtus, in which Christ consecrates the fish 
and bread, symbols of the Eucharist, clad in the pallium 
of the philosopher, with bare arm, than which we cannot 
imagine a more "pagan" representation. It is not an 



INTRODUCTION 3 

attempt at reality, which was not in the air of the period, 
but a symbolism, and we must not in any way be disturbed 
by the suggestion of something apparently opposed to 
Christian influence. 

One of the earliest paintings is known as "The Break- 
ing of Bread." It is upon a wall in the Capella Grseca, 
in the Catacomb of Priscilla, and belongs to the first 
decades of the second century. The elder men who looked 
at it might certainly have known others who knew 
the Apostles, or Saint John in his traditional old age. 
We are apparently in realism ; and centuries will pass 
before anything so simple and straightforward will be 
put again on the walls of a church or within the frame 
of a great canvas. The representation of the Story of 
the Gospels, or even of ceremonial, will have something 
of artificial solemnity, of ecclesiasticism, which is not 
here, at least to our accustomed eye. Seven persons are 
seated at a table, on which are two plates, with five 
loaves and two fishes. We see apparently the record 
of the Lord's Supper as celebrated in this very crypt. 
There is one woman among the communicants. We see 
the chalice with two handles, as used in the catacombs. 
One of the figures, in profile with a beard, wears the pal- 
lium or cloak, which belongs to the personage of rank, 
especially ecclesiastical rank. He may be a bishop or a 
priest. It is he who breaks the large loaf of bread, and 
the picture is well named from the New Testament 
phrase. The feet of the bishop, or clergyman, rest upon 
the same level as the chalice, and that is explained by 
the learned as indicating that below, both in the picture 
and in reality, were the tomb and relics of some martyr 
saint. 



y 



4 INTRODUCTION 

My intention is to bring together a certain number of 
paintings in which the Gospel story is told. I have 
begun with this entrance into our life of the Church which 
has changed everything in our arts. We may even be- 
lieve, as some do, that in the human countenance, certain 
expressions pictured since Christianity has remodelled 
human sentiments had no previous existence because 
these feelings had not until then permeated humanity. 
This is a view not insisted on by me, but worth recording 
and considering. In point of fact the portraits of the 
early Christians, such as are recorded for us in the Egyp- 
tian remains, belong to the pagan world, very much as 
do the faces of the average persons of to-day. 

The greater part of painting for centuries has been 
more or less connected with stories of religion, and out 
of thousands we have to take a small handful. Nor is it 
easy to know where to begin, as in the pictures in the 
catacombs we might go as far back as Noah, or even 
Adam, who with Eve becomes again at certain moments of 
late art the excuse for wonderful successes and splendours 
of execution, usually in some vague recurrence of a wish 
to rival the arts that belonged to purely pagan times. 
Indeed it is a mere action of the will to decide and divide 
the Old and the New. Thus we have the history of the 
Jews, the sacred race, explained in the work of Rem- 
brandt, and it might be a pious and meritorious work to 
take what the great painter left of his enormous creation 
and tell the story of the Bible from beginning to end. 
Rembrandt's story is a real one. He has absorbed the 
Jew ; and his Old and his New Testament is the story of 
the Jew in his splendour and in his disgrace. Heine has 
told us what happened to a certain Prince : 



INTRODUCTION 5 

"He was called Israel; 
Him the curse of witches turned into a hound, 
A hound with houndish thoughts. 
The whole week he roots through the dirt of Life, 
But every Friday evening 
At the hour of twilight 
Suddenly fades the charm. 
The hound takes up again the life of man, 
A man with the thoughts of men ; 
Cleanly clothed he steps into his Father's Hall." 

The Jew whom Heine sang was painted by Rem- 
brandt as he had not been painted before, nor has he 
been so painted since. It seems incredible that nobody 
should have used the type of the sacred race in the 
representation of the Sacred Story before Rembrandt's 
hand carried out the stories of the Bible in the characters 
of the people whose story the Bible is. Nor has anyone 
dared go on, and with the works of Rembrandt the 
representations of the life of the Bible are almost closed, 
although a few Spaniards will lengthen out the list. 

The eighteenth century is not to be taken seriously. 
Pictures may fill churches and go on in Venice until 
almost the end ; in the nineteenth, Goya in Spain may 
make us feel his own regret at having missed his chance ; 
Delacroix will paint five or six times something from the 
Bible Story, — even Corot may breathe a prayer, — but 
authoritatively there is nothing. 



THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 
CHAPTER I 

HELIODORUS 

Before we return with Rembrandt to the reality which 
we touch for a moment in the! painting of the catacombs, 
we shall find in more arbitrary and unreal works of art 
the mark of the time which produced or countenanced 
them, for the artist has only the choice of the language he 
has learned and which he has modified to some extent. 
That language may be more or less stilted, heroic, idyllic, 
epic, or commonplace ; he can only ride the horse that is 
brought to him by Fate. 

Let us take two great conventional pictures, the 
subject of which precedes the story of the New Testament 
and represents an unreality sufficiently modified to suit 
our present sense of proportion. They are the Heliodorus 
of Raphael and the Heliodorus of Delacroix. Usually 
we do not know the story very well, because it is in the 
Apocrypha, which we are not often taught. It made a 
beautiful and decorative subject for a picture, and with 
Raphael its meaning is an expression of the views of the 
great Pope Julius regarding the behaviour of wicked in- 
truders upon the rights of the Church of God. 

The English text is so expressive that we quote it : ^ 

^ II. Maccabees, iii. 
6 



HELIODORUS 7 

"Now when the holy city was inhabited with all peace, and the 
laws were kept very well, because of the godliness of Onias the high 
priest, and his hatred of wickedness ; 

It came to pass that even the Kings themselves did honour the 
place, and magnify the temple with their best gifts ; 

Insomuch that Seleucus king of Asia of his own revenues bare 
all the costs belonging to the service of the sacrifices. 

But one Simon of the tribe of Benjamin, who was made governor 
of the temple, fell out with the high priest about disorder in the 
city. 

And when he could not overcome Onias, he gat him to Apollonius 
the son of Thraseas, who then was governor of Celosyria and Phenice. 

And told him that the treasury in Jerusalem was full of infinite 
sums of money, so that the multitude of their riches, which did not 
pertain to the account of the sacrifices, was innumerable, and that 
it was possible to bring all into the king's hand. 

Now when Apollonius came to the king, and had shewed him of 
the money whereof he was told, the king chose out Heliodorus his 
treasurer, and sent him with a commandment to bring him the 
aforesaid money. 

So forthwith Heliodorus took his journey, under a colour of 
visiting the cities of Celosyria and Phenice, but indeed to fulfil the 
king's purpose. 

And when he was come to Jerusalem, and had been courteously 
received of the high priest of the city, he told him what intelligence 
was given of the money, and declared wherefore he came, and asked 
if these things were so indeed. 

Then the high priest told him that there was such money laid up 
for the relief of widows and fatherless children : 

And that some of it belonged to Hircanus son of Tobias, a man 
of great dignity, and not as that wicked Simon had misinformed : 
The sum whereof in all was four hundred talents of silver, and two 
hundred of gold : 

And that it was altogether impossible that such wrongs should 
be done unto them that had committed it to the holiness of the 
place, and to the majesty and inviolable sanctity of the temple, 
honoured over all the world. 



8 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

But Heliodorus, because of the king's commandment given him, 
said, That in any wise it must be brought into the king's treasury. 

So at the day which he appointed he entered in to order this 
matter; wherefore there was no small agony throughout the whole 
city. 

But the priests, prostrating themselves before the altar in their 
priests' vestments, called unto heaven upon him that made a law 
concerning things given to be kept, that they should safely be pre- 
served for such as had committed them to be kept. 

Then whoso had looked the high priest in the face, it would have 
wounded his heart ; for his countenance and the changing of his 
colour declared the inward agony of his mind. 

For the man was so compassed with fear and horror of the body, 
that it was manifest to them that looked upon him, what sorrow 
he had now in his heart. 

Others ran flocking out of their houses to the general supplica- 
tion, because the place was like to come into contempt. 

And the women, girt with sackcloth under their breasts, abounded 
in the streets, and the virgins that were kept in ran, some to the 
gates, and some to the walls, and others looked out of the windows. 

And all, holding their hands toward heaven, made supplication. 

Then it would have pitied a man to see the falling down of the 
multitude of all sorts, and the fear of the high priests, being in such 
an agony. 

They then called upon the Almighty Lord to keep the things 
committed of trust safe and sure for those that had committed them. 

Nevertheless Heliodorus executed that which was decreed. 

Now as he was there present himself with his guard about the 
treasury, the Lord of spirits, and the Prince of all power, caused a 
great apparition, so that all that presumed to come in with him were 
astonished at the power of God, and fainted, and were sore afraid. 

For there appeared unto them an horse with a terrible rider 
upon him, and adorned with a very fair covering, and he ran fiercely, 
and smote at Heliodorus with his forefeet, and it seemed that he 
that sat upon the horse had complete harness of gold. 

Moreover two other young men appeared before him, notable 
in strength, excellent in beauty, and comely in apparel, who stood 



HELIODORUS 9 

by him on either side, and scourged him continually, and gave him 
many sore stripes. 

And Hellodorus fell suddenly unto the ground, and was compassed 
with great darkness ; but they that were with him took him up, 
and put him into a litter. 

Thus him, that lately came with a great train and with all his 
guard into the said treasury, they carried out, being unable to help 
himself with his weapons ; and manifestly they acknowledged the 
power of God. 

For he by the hand of God was cast down, and lay speechless 
without all hope of life. 

But they praised the Lord, that had miraculously honoured his own 
place ; for the temple, which a little afore was full of fear and trouble, 
when the Almighty Lord appeared, was filled with joy and gladness. 

Then straightways certain of Hellodorus' friends prayed Onias, 
that he would call upon the Most High to grant him his life, who lay 
ready to give up the ghost. 

So the high priest, suspecting lest the king should misconceive 
that some treachery had been done to Hellodorus by the Jews, of- 
fered a sacrifice for the health of the man. 

Now as the high priest was making an atonement, the same 
young men in the same clothing appeared and stood beside Hello- 
dorus, saying, Give Onias the high priest great thanks, inasmuch as 
for his sake the Lord hath granted thee life : 

And seeing that thou hast been scourged from heaven, declare 
unto all men the mighty power of God. And when they had spoken 
these words, they appeared no more. 

So Hellodorus, after he had offered sacrifice unto the Lord, and 
made great vows unto him that had saved his life, and saluted Onias, 
returned with his host to the kifig. 

Then testified he to all men the works of the great God, which he 
had seen with his eyes. 

And when the king asked Heliodorus who might be a fit man to 
be sent yet once again to Jerusalem, he said, 

If thou hast any enemy or traitor, send him thither, and thou shalt 
receive him well scourged, if he escape with his life ; for in that place, 
no doubt, there is an especial power of God." 



lo THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

In Raphael's great and rightly famous painting^ we 
have the following points : 

1. The artist has to place his subject within an ar- 
chitectural space of a certain shape, which requires the 
continuous preoccupation on his part which we call 
sub-consciousness. 

2. Then he must fit these many figures to the scale 
of his room, and next tell the story, which itself is divided 
into three parts : the triumph of the Jewish Church, 
its deliverance from its enemies, the punishment of its 
persecutors. 

In the picture the scene is witnessed by Pope Julius 
II, who ordered it for its meaning. He was at that 
moment triumphant in having established the power 
of the papacy — incidentally of the Church. There 
could not be a more beautiful choice of a subject ; one 
freeing the mind from any small allusion and bringing up 
the perpetuity of the Church and its meaning from the 
past : and, to bring it more directly home, Pope Julius 
is carried into this remote time, some two thousand years 
back, in his usual manner, with his usual attendance, 
and he gazes with the proper interest of an official 
spectator. The picture almost explains itself without 
any text, although several incidents have been put 
together at the same moment; the answered prayer 
of the high priest who kneels far back; the anxiety, 
and also the relief of mind of the Jewish crowd ; in 
contrast, the steadiness and certainty of the few priests, 
and then on the right-hand side the miracle : the angels 
who drop down upon the intruder Heliodorus, and the 
other angel, the warrior who rides a horse that tramples 

* In the Stanze of the Vatican. 



HELIODORUS 13 

upon the fallen tyrant. On the edge of the picture the 
plunderers are dropping their booty. All the details of 
the great picture are famous, perhaps none more so than 
the flight of the two avenging angels across the open space 
of the temple. In a moment their whips will be down 
upon the tyrant, and not only shall Judaea be avenged, 
but the Pope will remember his last triumph over Venice, 
and the lashing of Heliodorus may recall to him the official 
blows with scourges given to the ambassadors of Venice 
and other excommunicated enemies in the ceremony of 
their repentance. 

"Va fuori d'Italia, va fuori o stranieri !" 

In his great painting of the same subject,^ Delacroix 
gives himself the pleasure of rivalling Raphael, innocently 
and easily, with that special good-nature that belonged to 
him. He has not chosen the arrangement of Raphael, 
a remarkable one that leaves the centre of the painting 
open and the interest on the sides. This was a form of 
composition of which Delacroix was fond, but which here 
he has not followed. Heliodorus is stretched out before 
us on the wide steps ; the plunder is all about him ; his 
men are interrupted as they carry out the golden vases, 
and down upon him come the avengers. No one, either 
Raphael or any other Italian, has ever done anything 
more splendid than the fall from heaven of the angel 
in the centre. Above him the rider on the white horse 
guides the beast to strike, with a certain accuracy not 
belonging to Raphael. The rider and animal have some- 
thing strange and supernatural which is in the meaning 
of the story and is carried as far as possible. The temple 

' In the Church of Saint Sulpice at Paris. 



14 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

is open above as in Raphael's picture, but with a novelty ; 
the great curtain that hangs between the columns is 
flapping in the wind which always comes with the things 
that happen from afar off. There the great painter has 
introduced for the first time something that never has 
been taken up since : the story told by inanimate things. 
The mere outline of those curtains and of the pillar do 
not, we feel, belong to something of every day and yet 
they might be photographed from nature. It is the same 
wonder that we see with Michael Angelo : the transmuta- 
tion of ordinary clay into gold. There is also the incli- 
nation, common to both Raphael and Delacroix, to sug- 
gest the story beyond the limits of the canvas. The crowd 
is there outside the picture ; we are only given the fringe 
of it, but it tells its tale while it leaves us to all the poetry 
of the main expression. Of course we should have known 
beforehand that the representation would be carried 
out by the great dramatic painter — the only dramatic 
painter of the last two hundred years — so as to suit 
the surface of his neighbouring walls. The painting has 
not as much as usual of the colour of which he was a 
master, but colour with him was simply a form of render- 
ing what Taine has called "the living passion of things." 
He saw further than the outside of beautiful objects ; 
he saw men themselves with their anxieties and their 
delights, and to each one of his perceptions he gave a 
form of colour and shape, as Mozart or Beethoven give 
us their meaning in arrangements of sound, of which they 
know the secret. As Taine goes on to say, he is the revealer 
of a possible new world ; and of the only thing which 
we really need, "/a seule chose dont nous ayons besoiny 
The Angel is traditionally represented to us even in 



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gll^f . '^-^ff^^^^g 



HELIODORUS. (Delacroix) 



HELIODORUS i7 

non-artistic Jewry, We have the Ninevite and Egyptian, 
and coming down the ages we find the Sun and Moon 
Angels of Buddhism and also of the Byzantine Mosaic 
in Saint Sophia, where Christ stands flanked by these 
testimonies of the power of the Creator, each one of 
which praises his Maker in song as he follows his ap- 
pointed path. Each of these images is derived, yet 
each is independent. Our Byzantine Angel, as he stands 
in conventional form, has already passed into ecclesiasti- 
cism and is a symbol of doctrine and of a new order of 
the world, as well as a reference to the older one con- 
nected with it. He is arbitrary — his life is not as free 
as that of his Buddhist congener, who belongs to some 
of the most adequate spiritual expression devised or in- 
herited by man. Kwannon and the Deva bring up the 
curious problems of the spiritual expression which we miss 
or do not see in Greek or Roman art, or in any until the 
East had poured its light upon the world: "Ex oriente 
lux." 

In the dreams of my youth I used to wonder what we 
should have found in the statues of the Three Graces 
which that immortal sculptor Socrates made and which 
Pausanias saw. Did he contrive to put into those images 
a meaning, a spiritual expression, such as his words have 
given us ? But the statues have disappeared and we never 
think of Socrates as a sculptor. Perhaps that one case 
might have changed the notion of what the Greek would 
have done. We have the actual expression of a martyr in 
the agony of death. Who will remember — I do not 
recall his name — the Christian captive martyrized in 
Morocco by being buried alive in plaster ? We have his 
actual image, and some fifty years ago Charles Dickens 



1 8 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

wrote about it. I forget how adequate the illustration 
was, and it happened before photographs were common. 
That is the one authentic case. We see expression as felt 
by artists — perhaps the love of Christ in fellow-man — • 
but such an expression on such a face as Saint Francis's 
is most difficult of representation. There is, however, a 
new and distinct feeling which is wanting in the great 
spiritual teachings of the ancient world ; love has been 
introduced into the necessities of the soul. That is the 
difference historically, and gradually, all through the art 
influenced by Christ, this distinct spirituality of love 
has marked, almost without intention, the turn of the 
artist's mind, and more and more his hand. Even yet 
we feel it in some few pieces of modern art, but it has 
entirely disappeared from religious painting. 



CHAPTER II 

THE PROPHETS AND SIBYLS 

In ancient history there was a time when the prophecies 
of the Sibyls represented for the pagan world what the 
Jewish prophets did for the Hebrew story, and Michael 
Angelo, by his work in the Sistine Chapel, gives us the 
power of realizing this, as it did for the people of his 
day. His Prophets and Sibyls surround the great 
ceiling and form an accompaniment to the story of 
the Old Testament with which he covered it. The 
whole is a masterpiece, and besides being a masterpiece, 
it is the invention of a new form of decoration, and we 
know that it is splendid and wonderful, and a lesson, 
or rather a collection of innumerable lessons, for all 
painters and sculptors since its date. But although we 
acknowledge its power, we do not always absorb the story 
told by the painter. He has given us the histories which 
are the very foundation of the Christian faith, which from 
the beginning of time have made it necessary — all the 
chapters taken from the Bible telling of the creation of 
the world and the course of human wickedness. Man is 
by himself incapable of escaping sin : hence the necessity 
of Redemption, and it is the Redeemer who is desired and 
predicted by the row of Prophets and Sibyls. 

To-day the part played by the Sibyls in the early 
life of Christianity is further away than things really 
more remote, the explanation perhaps being that the 
19 



20 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

necessity for prophetic confirmation is less practical to 
us of the last centuries, and the poetry, the charm, the 
intense importance of the meaning has faded with the 
fading of the meaning of Rome, So that when we take up 
the representation of Michael Angelo's Sibyls we may be 
puzzled to get back to the influences under which he 
worked. How much more were the Sibyls to him than 
they are to us? The "Dies Irse" — with its "Teste 
David cum Sibylla" — had been written before him, and 
when we hear it sung to-day it carries nothing but a 
poetic association with it. And yet the great man 
did justice to David as to the Sibyls, and the latter sur- 
round the Sistine Chapel together with the Prophets, a 
base to the Christian story as well as to the decorative 
scheme of the ceiling. 

In these great creations, the last reverberation of the 
awful meaning attached to their names brings us to 
accept them as they are, without explanation. No stu- 
dent who looks at their photographs quietly need ask 
what they really mean. They are sufficient and pro- 
phetic — surcharged with significance — and types in- 
deed of Michael Angelo himself, whose meaning runs 
along, in and out of what he has done ; so that we can 
imagine — or, rather, we know — that a complicated, 
hidden sentiment fills the visible representation, over and 
above the comprehension and rendering of the subject 
as a fact. Dreams and contemplation must have filled 
the shapes which the lover of Plato drew out of the 
heavenly storehouse. 

Perhaps — and most probably — he read or was read 
to from the Sibylline verses. Surrounded by so much 
learning he might not escape the accumulation, especially 



THE PROPHETS AND SIBYLS 21 

as the moment was just that when the original tongue, if 
one may speak inaccurately, was beginning to be the 
object of discovery and study. I am speaking of the fierce 
Sibylline predictions, not of the sweet recollections which 
the pagan Virgil brought to us — that memory of his 
own prophecy which fits him later to walk with Dante 
in the imaginary other world as "leader and master." 

Who were the Sibyls and what were their names are 
questions confused and tossed about. Of some we know, 
and as soon as we know they melt into others. Greek and 
Roman prophecy was limited to their speech, remembered 
or written. Varro has told us that the Greek word means 
the "counsel of God." Another tells us that the Sibyl is 
native of Babylon ; Greek writers have referred to several. 
Varro has ten ; Pausanias gives us four : Hierophile (a 
Libyan), She of Marpessus or Erythrsa (said to have 
prophesied in Asia and at Delphi), Demo of Cumas (the 
Chief Sibyl of Roman history), and the Hebrew Sibyl 
Saba (old — the Sabbe of the Psalmist), who is also 
known as She of Babylon and Egypt. In the books of 
the Sibyls, which are beautifully unauthentic, this last 
one went as far back as the Deluge. Even the Queen 
of Sheba was supposed to be one of them. 

In thinking of their names, so interchangeable and 
uncertain, one is reminded that the names of the priest- 
esses of the Eleusinian mysteries were abolished by throw- 
ing their written titles into the sea, with danger of death 
for those who should reveal them. 

The Sibylline prophecies and songs were poems wherein 
the Hellenistic Greek speech was used to attack the old 



22 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

Greek creed, and were Jewish in greater part, because 
they chiefly owe their origin to the forced colonization 
of Egypt by the Semites under the prosperity and 
wealth of the Ptolemies. The captivity of Babylon had 
scattered the Jews, who succeeded in Egypt, learned the 
language of Plato, and tried to imitate him, but they 
remained Jews at heart, and kept the hope alive of a final 
reversal. 

Some of them asked themselves if the times foretold so 
often by the Prophets had not come at last, if God should 
not now at length appear and establish upon the world 
the rule of his people. They believed in such an event, 
and addressed the Greeks, exhorting them to give up 
their idols and be converted. Nor did they hesitate to 
invent ancient prophecies. Had they talked to Jews, they 
would have made Daniel or Isaiah speak ; for the Greeks 
they chose prophetesses who had credit with them. 

The Sibyls had been popular once ; hence false Sibyl- 
line oracles were created, and in these oracles for five 
centuries the desire, the wrath, the hope, of the dis- 
inherited was expressed. They charged the Sibyl to 
preach the unity of God, chastity, charity, the advent of 
the Messiah, and the glory coming to Israel in another 
world. " Isis, O unfortunate goddess, alone thou shalt 
remain on the dried shores of Acheron, and on the earth 
there shall be no more memory of thee. And thou, 
Serapis, thou shalt groan seated in the ruins of thy temple, 
and one of thy priests, still dressed in his linen robe, 
shall cry, 'Come, let us build an altar to the true God; 
let us leave the beliefs of our fathers who sacrificed to 
gods of stone and clay.'" 

Still further, in dreams of the future (which we call 




THE LIBYAN SIBYL. (Michael Angelo) 



THE PROPHETS AND SIBYLS 25 

now Socialism), they invented a time when all should 
be in common. "The earth then shall be divided among 
all. It shall not be separated by limits ; it shall not be 
shut up by walls, there shall be no more beggar or rich 
man, no master or slave, no little and no great, no kings, 
no chiefs ; all shall belong to all." Then as to the rich : 
"To extend their domains and to make servants, they 
plunder the poor. If the earth were not seated and 
fixed so far from the sky, they would arrange that the 
light should not be equally divided among all. The sun 
would be bought for gold and would shine only for the 
rich, and God would have to make another world for the 
poor." 

These songs are full of violent invective against the 
Roman rule. They carry the hatred felt in many nations 
against the great empire known to us by its glory. 
Divided by origins, for they come of different races, they 
united in hating Rome. "Ill luck to thee, ill luck, O 
Fury ; friend of vipers, thou shalt sit widowed of thy 
people on the shore. O wicked city where songs are 
sung, thou shalt be silent. In thy temples the maidens 
shall no longer keep up the eternal fire ; thou shalt bend 
thy head, O proud Rome ; fire shall devour thee whole, 
thy wealth shall perish, wolves and foxes shall live in thy 
ruins, thou shalt be as if thou hadst never been. . . . 
When shall I have the pleasure to see this day, terrible 
for thee and for all that Latin race ?" 

All this came from Syrians and Egyptians, but also 
from Jews and semi-Christians who wished to avenge 
their faiths. Nothing occurred, and the empire stood 
firm, but the Sibyls went on predicting. They seem 
very near to us in one instance, when the great eruption 



26 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

of Vesuvius which destroyed Pompeii brings this out : 
"When the entrails of Italy shall be torn, when flame shall 
stretch into the vast heaven, killing men and filling the 
immense air with a cloud of dark ashes, when drops shall 
fall from above, red as blood, acknowledge the wrath 
of a God who wishes to avenge the death of his just." 

The end of the world is predicted in the usual way : 
"111 luck to the women who shall see that day. A dark 
cloud shall cover the world on the side of the rising and 
the setting sun, on the south and on the north. A river 
of fire shall pour from heaven and devour the earth. 
The heavenly torches shall run one against the other ; 
the stars shall fall into the sea, and the world shall be 
empty. The race of man shall grind its teeth when the 
earth shall catch fire under its feet ; all shall go into dust ; 
no bird shall cross space ; no fish shall part the sea ; the 
sound of trees tossing in the wind shall no more be heard ; 
all creatures shall come to burn in the divine furnace, 
devoured by thirst and grief ; they shall call death to their 
help, but death shall not come ; there is no more death 
for them, no more night, no more rest." 

We feel the trace even to-day of all these threats, 
but they do not come to us through the Sibylline verses. 

How much of what we have just been reading was 
actually in the memory of the painter and his contem- 
porary admirers, or visitors, or teachers ? For it was the 
moment of the learned man, the prodigy of absorption, 
the devourer of books, of all that gigantic power of ac- 
cumulation which we see in some great cases of that 
time. In that moment also the world was attacked by 
the invention of printing and the putting of great quantities 
of documents into final shape. We shall attempt to 



THE PROPHETS AND SIBYLS 27 

follow these possible sources of influence as we now take 
up the figures of the vault. 

The pose of each Sibyl is not only the attitude of the 
person, but also the attitude which will best fit with the 
adjoining Prophets. They form part of a rhythmic 
whole, however they may look as though struck out at 
a blow. We have, for example, in the Libyan another 
meaning through a sketch which Michael made. The 
attitude is the same in so far as she sits edgewise and 
turns and half lifts herself, as Vasari remarks, but in 
the sketch she has taken up a child, not the book, which 
so wonderfully fills up to our mind her meaning as the 
reader or teacher of a great lesson. 

Michael hesitated. Did he mean something special ^ 
— Is there a text for a child — beside The Child f If 
he thought of the last, he could not place so important, 
so all-important an image — the one to which all else 
has to point a meaning — in the side issue of the Sibyl 
border. I have not found a text as yet — and still I 
am loath to let the matter rest. 

Descriptions have been overworked, but Vasari's 
words may give at least a contemporaneous word of 
admiration. 

"As much (in praise of beauty) may be said for the Libyan 
Sibyl who, having completed the writing of a large book taken from 
other volumes, is on the point of rising with a movement of feminine 
grace which at the same time shows the intent of lifting and putting 
aside the book — a thing so difficult that it would certainly have 
proved impossible to any other than the master of this work." 

Vasari is professional, and admires at once the solving 
of an enormous difficulty. This solution is so complete 
that we do not notice It any more than we do in nature. 



28 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

The perfections — if I may use words of that date — the 
perfections of this very great man are such that we praise 
him easily for the obvious ; we praise him for the difficult ; 
we forget to praise him for his relation to the ordinary — 
the thing that one sees all the time — in which this excep- 
tional creature connects with his Italian ancestry of 
sculpture and painting as well as with the future reality 
of Dutchman and Spaniard, and even perhaps with the 
last success of the arts of record, the instantaneous 
photograph. Let us take the marvellous Raphael, or 
any best Frenchman of the past ; when they come to a 
very noble effort we feel that the accidental vision of 
nature has not been theirs. They have composed or 
perpetrated something wonderful and beautiful, but 
there has not come down to them from heaven a revela- 
tion of ordinary life. 

Whether these are new remarks or not I do not know ; 
but as I sat day after day looking at the ceiling with a 
companion — a Spanish peasant pilgrim — we talked 
of the nature of these things. The figures are as humble, 
as good-natured, as any sketch that you may come across 
in a newspaper. The attitude of Jeremiah, one of the 
very great creations of art, is one that we have seen every 
day or so in every railroad station, perhaps in the very 
car in which we have travelled, and yet here it is, elected 
out of all other possibilities, and suddenly we say : This 
is the most marvellous ideal reached by man. 

What really makes the astounding superiority of this 
colossal human being Is that In certain ways his humility 
Is as great as his pride ; he, one of the proudest of all 
men, to see the very great and th« very noble has only 
to open his eyes on the appearances of every day. 




THE PROPHET JEREMIAH. (iMichael Angelo) 



THE PROPHETS AND SIBYLS 31 

With that in our mind we may pass to what Vasari 
says next of the Prophet Jeremiah : 

"The prophet is seated with the lower limbs crossed, and holding 
his beard with one hand, the elbow of that arm being supported by 
the knee, while the other hand is laid on his lap; the head is bent 
down in a manner which indicates the grief, the cares, the conflicting 
thoughts, and the bitter regrets which assailed the Prophet, as he 
reflected on the condition of his people. There is evidence of similar 
power in the two boys behind him ; and in the first Sibyl, that nearest 
to the door, in whom the artist has proposed to exhibit advanced 
age, and not content with enveloping her form in draperies, has 
furthermore placed the book which she is reading very close to her 
eyes, by the way of intimating that her power of sight is weakened 
by the same cause." 

She is the Persian Sibyl (Persica), and again the 
painter's accuracy and honesty of vision and appreciation 
of every-day life comes in. 

In a more ironic time than Vasari's, we may enjoy 
Michael's half-amused rendering of the tremendous old 
lady who finds it difficult to read her own handwriting, 
perhaps written many years before. Of course she is 
wrapped up, as Vasari says. Those folds, now trans- 
lated into lines of grandeur and heroic memory, may be 
the recollection of any old crone in Rome, sitting on out- 
side steps, or at home in the housekeeper's room poring 
over accounts, and we recognize the manner of attitude 
that belongs to one's own work, to what we are personally 
interested in, and not to the reading of an official book. 

In ample contradiction to the ancient and somewhat 
prosaic lady who is marked as the Persian, the Delphic 
Sibyl recalls the Greek beauty of line and "ample pinion," 
spreading out in a great sweep, and ending in the mystic 
scroll. One could almost imagine that Michael had seen 



32 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

Greek work, so harmonious is the balance and proportion 
and curve and direction of each part of the dress and 
drapery. She has also a freshness of expression, a look 
of finding the world beautiful, which sets her apart 
among the various women her companions. Why she 
should ever have ceased delivering her oracles in verse 
has been, as we know, debated, and Michael's painting of 
her does not explain it, whatever Plutarch might have 
thought (or rather, perhaps, his friend Cleo) in his speech 
on the Temple steps at Delphi. As the reader will re- 
member, Cleo says that "the use of speech seems to be 
like the exchange of money ; there was once a time when 
the stamp and coin of language was approved and passed 
current in verses, songs, and sonnets ; for then all histories, 
all learning, all functions and subjects that required 
grave discussion were written in poetry and fitted for 
musical composition, and what now but a few will 
scarce vouchsafe to hear, then all men listened to. All 
delighted in songs and verses. When they had to teach, 
they did it in songs fitted for the harp ; their praises of 
the gods and songs after victory were all in verse ; after- 
ward, the conversation of man altered with his change of 
fortune ; changed also were golden topknots and silken 
vestments loosely flowing in careless folds ; long locks 
were clipped, and men taught to glory in sobriety and 
frugality. Then it was that history alighted from versify- 
ing, as it were from riding in chariots, and on foot dis- 
tinguished truth from fable ; and philosophy began to 
dispute after truth in common and vulgar terms. And 
then it was that Apollo caused the Pythian priestess to 
surcease calling her fellow-citizens by strange names 
(even the rivers being called mountain-drainers), and. 



THE PROPHETS AND SIBYLS 33 

discarding verses of uncouth words and obscurity, 
taught the oracle to speak plain. Ever since belief and 
perspicacity thus associated, it came to pass that men were 
desirous to understand clearly and easily, without flower 
of circumlocution, and they began to find fault with 
oracles enveloped in poetry, overshadowing the sentence, 
and they also suspected the very truth of the prophecy 
itself, muffled up in so much metaphor. The ancients 
stood in need of double meaning and obscurity. The 
deity, when he makes use of mortal prophets, does not 
go about to express the truth, but only eclipses the mani- 
festation of it, rendering it by the means of poetic um- 
brage less severe and ungrateful, for it is not convenient 
that princes or their enemies should at once know what 
is by Fate decreed to their disadvantage. But the 
Pythian priestess is naturally, when busy with the 
deity, in more need of truth than of minding the praise 
or dispraise of men, and her language is what the mathe- 
matician defines a straight line to be, that is to say, the 
shortest that may be drawn between two points ; and 
she has been obnoxious to strict examination, nor could 
ever any person to this very day convict her of falsehood ; 
but on the other side she has filled the temple with 
gifts and offerings. There were others who blamed the 
ambiguity and obscurity of the oracle, as others to-day 
find fault with its plainness, and they are both alike 
foolish in their passion, like children better pleased with 
the sight of rainbows that circle the sun and moon than 
to see the sun and moon themselves. They are taken with 
riddles and figurative speeches which are but the reflections 
of oracular divination to the apprehension of our mortal 
understanding." 



34 



THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 



So far the wise man justified the ways of the gods. 
The later Judeo-Christian verses say that, three thou- 
sand years before, the first Sibyl had come from Helicon, 
where she was bred by the Muses, though others affirm 
that she was a daughter of Lamia, whose father was 
Neptune. There at Delphi she sat upon the famous 
cleft rock, while in Michael's painting she sits upon an 
artificial rest made by human hands. (This is probably 
a privilege of composition.) Our same informant, Cleo, 
tells us that "she had extolled herself as one that would 
never cease to prophesy, even after death, but after her 
decease should make her abode in the orbit of the 
moon, being metamorphosed into the face of that planet ; 
that her voice should be always heard in the air, inter- 
mingled with the winds, and by them wafted from place 
to place ; and that from her body should spring plants, 
herbs, fruits, whereby man would be able to foretell all 
manner of events to come." 

"That orbed maiden with white fire laden, 
Whom mortals call the moon," 

might then be our Delphic Sibyl talking to us from 
high heaven ; and though it may not be that Michael 
saw Cleo's text, the name of "orbed maiden" suits well 
her wonderful curve. ^ 

Plutarch's reference to the Delphic Sibyl and de- 
scription of her conduct is matched by Lombroso's de- 
scription of the behaviour of certain mediums of to-day. 
The trance beginning with a change of voice and tears 
and tremors and the jerking of hands and feet, paleness 
and nodding of the head; then the state of ecstasy 

' This special impression of circular movement has been noticed by many admirers. 




THE DELPHIC SIBYL. (Michael Angelo) 



THE PROPHETS AND SIBYLS 37 

(whatever that may mean) with hysterical gestures ; 
then conversation and moans and shrieks, and deep 
sleep. And then from this being blows a vapour, some- 
times warm, sometimes cold and sensible to the touch. 
(This refers to the famous Eusapia.) This curious wind 
blows also from her left leg, stiffening out her skirt. 
For Mr. Lombroso, this is the "creatic" (sic) frenzy of 
genius, which otherwise is a psycho-epileptic paroxysm, 
as in Shakespeare. Plutarch does not quite give us the 
same view, rather the contrary, but the analogies, as 
the wind blowing and the vapour, seem apparent connec- 
tions with the various points made by the ancient de- 
scriber of the Sibyls, who were under "spirit control" 
like our mediums. It is quite natural that some of the 
ancient heroes should have spoken through them, just 
as to-day, according to Lombroso, the dead are endowed 
with power sufficient to impart ideas to the medium. 

Here comes in beautifully what Phsedo was told by 
Socrates : 

"All prophecy is a madness, and the prophetess at Delphi, when 
out of her senses, conferred great benefits upon Hellas both in public 
and private life, but when in her senses, few or none. And I might 
tell you how the Sibyl, and others, who have had the gift, have told 
the future aright, but that is obvious ; where plagues and mighty 
wars have been bred, owing to ancient wrath, where madness, lifting 
up her voice and resorting to prayers and rites, has come to the rescue 
of those who are in need." 

The Cumaean Sibyl — Demo is her name — has never 
been properly described in words ; Vasari is inaccurate, 
and Zola is like himself. The picture is there for us to 
see, and we need only notice the mighty arm, which 
marks for many critics the beginning of Michael Angelo's 



38 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

tendency to the expression of extreme muscular power. 
But the old lady is massive enough to warrant the great 
arm. She seeks some passage in the heavy book propped 
on the edge of her seat ; other big books are brought 
by the attendant boys. Her frown indicates naturally 
enough the difficulty of picking out the special prophecy 
which perhaps she had confided, as we know, to the leaves 
which blew out from her cavern.^ ^neas tried to beg of 
the Cumaean that she would not confide her songs to 
leaves, lest they should fly before the winds in turbulent 
mockery. We all remember the wonderful passage 
wherein, weeping over Palinurus, ^neas is carried to the 
Euboean shore of Cumae, where stands a great temple of 
Apollo with sculptures or paintings that tell the stories 
of the gods. They sacrifice, and the priestess calls them 
to where, out of the rock, is cut an enormous cavern 
with a hundred openings, whence reach as many voices, 
the answers of the Sibyl. Then suddenly she appears, 
flushed and breathing hard, with dishevelled hair, and her 
breast heaving, the cords of her throat swollen with 
frenzy; and she seems greater than a mortal. Her 
first words freeze the bones of JEneas, who begs for the 
prophecy of his future, in the hope of a rest for Troy, 
and he promises in the future great temples for both 
Phoebus and herself. Then she rages to free herself 
from the god, but all the more does he fatigue her wild 
mouth, and from the hundred doors of the great cavern 
pour out the answers of the oracle. The hero, taking 
hold of the altar, asks that he may enter Avernus, where 
he wishes to see his father, who has called to him, and she 
tells him how easy is the descent of Avernus, how difficult 

'Hence the expression "Sibylline leaves." 




THE CUM.EAN SIBYL. (Michael Angelo) 



THE PROPHETS AND SIBYLS 41 

the return. But there is in a dark wood a tree with a 
branch of gold sacred to infernal Juno ; that he is to pluck, 
for when the first is torn away another golden one is not 
wanting. But how shall the Golden Bough show itself 
in the night of the immense forest .'* And he appeals to 
his mother Venus. At his prayer twin doves come down 
and alight, and guide him to the tree from which he breaks 
the reluctant branch and brings it to the Sibyl. Then 
the enormous rock gapes, the hero calls on Achates and 
sacrifices, while under his feet the earth groans, the 
summits of the trees move, and the dogs howl in the 
shadow as the Sibyl comes. 

And so on until hell itself is entered, as Dante will 
enter it again. Occasionally the Sibyl admonishes 
^neas, and at last the priestess of Phoebus hurries him 
to the gate, and bids him place the Golden Bough on 
the threshold as they leave. Then later we have the 
glorious prophecies of the future fate of Rome (which 
even to-day are continued), and the famous prediction of 
the boy Marcellus who is to be, and then two gates of 
Sleep are before them : the one of Horn and the other of 
Ivory, and the Sibyl and ^neas leave by the Ivory Gate. 

Much must have happened after that before tradi- 
tion brings the Sibyl (for whom apparently no great 
temples were built by ^neas) to offer to sell Tarquin 
her books, one of which she consults in the painting. 
First, nine she offered, and then she destroyed three, 
and offered six at the same price, and again destroyed 
three more and offered the remaining three, still at 
the same price. Thereupon Tarquin, as we remember, 
bought them and they were entrusted to a college of 
Fifteen, known under that name, which preserved them, 



42 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

and consulted them on occasions of exceptional danger — 
not exactly to discover extraordinary future events, but to 
ascertain and carry out observances, to avert calamities, 
and to expiate (according to habit), prodigies. They 
were written in hexameter verse in Greek (hence the two 
Greek interpreters), and were burned with the temple of 
Jupiter on the Capitol in 83 b.c. 

Michael must have read the great, joyous, luminous 
prophecy also quoted by Virgil, wherein we are told how 
the last age has come of the Cumaean song, and a great 
order is born, and the Virgin appears, and 

"'From high Heaven a new progeny comes down.'" 

One is tempted to quote anything out of the wonderful 
poem, so fully worthy of the subject, and equal, in the 
most civilized shape, to any prophecy of any time. No 
wonder that later the Virgilian lines were appealed to 
and the Cumsean Sibyl justified ; — Saint Justin even 
goes so far as to mention Saint Paul's reference to the Sibyl. 
If this could be true, how beautiful the reach of the 
Cumsean verse ! Cannot we delight in the thought of 
Paul listening to the prophecies — and indeed he must 
have heard them, for they were known throughout the 
entire world, wherever the Jew mingled with the Greek. 

The Emperor Constantine used that wonderful Fourth 
Eclogue as a basis of argument in a famous oration. He 
took up the proof of the divinity of our Lord from weighty 
authorities. Then he quoted from the Sibyl, bringing 
up also that Cicero knew the prophecies, and especially 
that one which is contained in an acrostic made up of 
thirty-four verses with headings that give us : Jesus- 
Christ, the Son of God, the Saviour, and dwelling on the 




THE ERYTHR/EAN SIBYL. (Michael Angeloj 



THE PROPHETS AND SIBYLS 45 

fact referred to by Cicero that the verses of the prophecies 
are arranged for acrostics. Hence Cicero is supposed to 
have seen or known that famous acrostic wherein the 
judgment of the world is predicted, and that Rome is 
coming to an end. 

So said Constantine, who must have derived his 
opinion from the Book of Divination written by Cicero. 
But Cicero — if I remember rightly — speaks ill of these 
verses of the Sibyl, which he says fell from her in a fury, 
"that fury which is called divination, but which is such 
that a person distracted seeth what a wise man sees not, 
and that he who has lost human abilities has acquired 
divine ones"; he also properly says that "the Sibyl 
should be kept secret and sequestered from us ; that, as 
it hath been ordered by our ancestors, the books be not 
read without permission of the Senate. They should draw 
nothing out of them rather than a king, which neither 
gods nor men will ever hereafter suffer in Rome." 
This he speaks in relation to the design of Cotta, his col- 
league, to have Caesar proclaimed king, and Cicero, re- 
ferring to the use of an acrostic, shows that the artifice 
was common to the Sibylline poems, and remarks that 
this thing shows circumspection and not fury. It is ar- 
gued that Virgil could not have read the Sibylline verses, 
since they were hidden, and as to that a charming ro- 
mance has been brought up of Virgil on his visit to Rome 
having met Herod of Judeea. 

The Emperor Constantine, calling again upon Virgil's 
testimony, invokes the verses as to the Virgin's coming, 
and says: "Who then shall be the returning Virgin but 
she who conceived by the Divine Spirit?" Justin Martyr 
complained to the Emperor, "that through the working of 



46 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

evil spirits it is forbidden upon pain of death to read the 
books of the Sibyl, for fear that those who should read 
them might be diverted from taking cognizance of good 
things : but we not only read them, but also recommend 
them to your inspection, knowing they would be accept- 
able to you all." 

Commenting on Plato (who described ecstacy as being 
inspired of God), Justin says "he clearly and manifestly 
sought into the oracles of the Sibyl, for she had not, as 
the poets have, the power to correct her poems after she 
had written them, and to polish them, as to what concerns 
the exact observation of measures ; she accomplished what 
was of her prophecy, and the inspiration failing she no 
longer remembered the things she had said ; hence comes 
it that all the verses of the Sibylline poems were not 
preserved." Again Justin, being at the City of Cumae, 
tells of those who "led him up and down and showed him 
the place where she spoke her oracles, and a certain urn 
of brass where they said her relics were conserved." 
And further: "Submit to the most ancient of all the 
Sibyls, whose books, it has so happened, are preserved 
all the world over, and who, by oracles proceeding from a 
certain powerful inspiration, hath taught you concern- 
ing those who are called Gods that they are not such." 

Petronius refers to her as endowed with the coveted 
and burdensome gift of immortality, bestowed by 
Apollo on his mistaken favourites, and tells us that 
groups of merry children, tired of playing in the sunny 
streets, sought the shade of the temple, and amused them- 
selves by gathering under the familiar jar and calling 
out "Sibyl, what do you wish?" A hollow voice like 
an echo used to answer from the urn : " I wish to die." 




THE PROPHET EZEKIEL. (Michael Angelo) 



THE PROPHETS AND SIBYLS 49 

We pass from the Cumsean to the Erythraean Sibyl 
at the other end of the line. The Erythraean — the 
Red Sibyl — is sometimes made out to be the proper 
claimant of the Delphic seat. In the Sibylline verses 
she places herself, as is natural, in the sixth generation 
after the Flood. Is she the Hebrew Sibyl, or are we to 
call the Persian one (known also as the Babylonian or 
Egyptian) by the name of "Saba," old.'' In the third 
Sibylline verses the Sibyl explains that she is not an 
Erythraean, nor a daughter of Circe, but a native of 
Babylon, and a daughter of Noah, and tells some awful 
stories about herself which go beyond the very possi- 
bilities of outrage and wrong. Pausanias, who should 
know, tells us in his list of four, that the Erythraean 
prophesied at Delphi. We know that most of the ancients 
made the Erythraean Sibyl the daughter of Jupiter or of 
Apollo and Lamia or of the shepherd Theodorus and the 
nymph Idea ; nor is it clear how they could have made 
her born at Erythraea, a city of Asia, if they thought her 
the daughter of Circe, dwelling near Rome upon the 
mountain called to this day Monte Circello. 

When the books of the Cumaean in the temple of 
Jupiter on the Capitol were burnt with the temple, 
the senate sent ambassadors to Erythraea to collect 
the oracles afresh. They brought back one thousand 
verses. The older collection of Sibylline oracles seems 
to have been made in the time of Solon, at Gergis on 
Mount Ida in the Troad, and attributed to the Sibyl 
of Marpessus. At Gergis they were preserved in the 
temple of Apollo ; thence they passed to Erythraea ; 
in some manner the collection found its way to Cumae 
and from there to Rome. They then were revised under 



50 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

Augustus and placed at length in the base of the statue 
of Apollo Patrous. They were there in the year 363 a.d., 
forever connected with the fate of the Roman Empire, 
and hence they were burnt by Stilicho a few years later, 
in 400. These strictly pagan ones might disappear, 
but of a mass of them the Church could not get rid, and 
for centuries the supposed prophecies and the real ones, 
the Sibylline verses, ran up and down the discussions of 
the Church, and I remember reading heavy books of 
battles between Protestants and Catholics concerning 
their value, written as late as 1671. Now we can hardly 
realize how important they once were, for their record 
is only carried out in the images of the painters ; from 
being beautiful, they became commonplace, then tedious, 
and at last merely names for the tag on the frame of a 
picture, until now we do not even know what is meant 
by a Sibyl. She of Erythrsea might have foretold this 
as she turns on her seat and looks up the passages, mark- 
ing one with her forefinger. The deputation from Rome 
has just come in ; it is growing dark, and the boy is light- 
ing the lamp. Before turning to the ambassadors, the 
Sibyl repeats to herself what she has marked, and we can 
see her lips move. Her right arm hangs, of course 
thoughtlessly, in the great folds which are always our 
admiration, and her strange costume is perhaps nothing 
more than a modification of some lady's dress or peasant's 
garb. But it is with universal consent one of the beautiful 
arrangements of drapery. In another moment the folds 
will fall as she uncrosses her leg, and she will get out her 
prophecies and send them to Rome. 

The Prophets are the most monumental figures known 
to painting, whose poetic intensity is superior even to 




THE PROPHET ISAIAH. (Michael AngeloJ 



THE PROPHETS AND SIBYLS 53 

the other creations of the greatest poet who ever painted. 
To follow their pictures would be fully sufficient, but one 
may hope to note some point which may bring us nearer 
to the author and give us a little more the reasons of the 
actual appearance before us. 

For each one there are, as with the Sibyls, two attend- 
ant figures, probably with no meaning other than that 
of contrast and composition, but occasionally so impres- 
sively placed and with such curious details that many 
have thought them meant as sources of inspiration — 
beautiful servants of the Most High as well as of the 
Prophet — perhaps indeed invisible to him. As we take 
Ezekiel, for instance, at first the feminine child pointing 
up and looking far away seems to mean something. It 
may be nothing more than the arm repeating the fold of 
the Prophet's cloak, but one might wish some explana- 
tion of this most curious type, something also which 
would explain the frightened look of the other beautiful 
attendant. As to the Prophet, he is easier to read ; a 
narrow turban is tightened on his head — the head of 
an evident enthusiast. He speaks, announcing to the 
Jews the end of their captivity, the restoring of the 
Temple. His cloak rises about him in the wind of proph- 
ecy, as if he had suddenly been called ; we feel the 
argument, the reason he is giving : it is not merely a 
declaration, it is a formal proof, and as with all else of 
Michael's, the fusion of the greatest solemnity and the 
most accurate observation is complete. 

Isaiah has left one hand on the book to mark the 
passage he was reading. We feel that he has been think- 
ing it over. His other hand has been uplifted — perhaps 
he was leaning his head upon it — and is still raised me- 



54 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

chanically. The angel speaks to him ; the Prophet's lips 
begin an answer; he turns slowly to the accustomed 
call which disturbs him. Again it is a scene of ordinary 
life transmuted into the "tremendous majesty" of the 
hymn. He, like the other Prophets, is accustomed to 
talk with Jehovah. 

Joel has come to the end of the long roll of prophecies ; 
with one hand he holds it ; the other stops the dropping 
of the parchment. He finds some hard passage ; he 
frowns and his lips are pursed in the effort of discovery. 
One of the boys behind him points to the other, directing 
him in some way. 

Zachariah we see in profile turning over slowly the 
leaves. His two attendants wait. He himself has 
dropped a foot from his stool and perhaps may rise when 
he has found his place. 

Daniel is still young and powerful. A great book is 
spread upon his knees and partially held up by his mus- 
cular left arm. His one imaginary attendant stands 
beneath the big volume, gripping it hard, and holding 
it as if he were a pulpit. The young Daniel, meanwhile, 
absorbed in his task, turns to the right. He makes a 
note on another volume or scroll as if comparing the 
two. He is as violently anxious and interested as the 
other Prophets so far have been certain. The wind 
of prophecy blows his mantle in many folds about him 
and over the background of his chosen place. 

Jonah is almost naked in' the triumph of drawing 
admired by the Italians of the time, as Condivi has 
noted, and turns far over, counting on his fingers the 
forty days which remain for Nineveh. Beside him is 
the sea-monster from whom he has escaped, and behind 




THE PROPHET JONAH. (Michael Angelo) 



THE PROPHETS AND SIBYLS 57 

him his attendant angel looks at whatever is happening, 
with a frightened face, while the leaves of the gourd with 
which God rebukes the over-anxious personality of the 
Prophet blow in the wind of prophecy. Here, again, we 
feel that same frequentation with the Most High Jehovah. 
Nothing could better express the feeling of remonstrance 
and disappointment in argument than the entire figure 
of the anxious Prophet. 

Jonah concludes the series of the Prophets. He is 
above the altar, and perhaps Michael may have thought 
then of the painting which he put upon the wall below 
years after, where, for the first time, appears the Saviour 
whose coming is specially predicted by the figure of 
Jonah. 

When in the Sistine on Good Friday the " Miserere " 
is sung, and each light goes out in sequence, the mighty 
figures, as they disappear, seem to pass into the terrible 
story of the Old Testament which Michael has once more 
resumed on the end wall in the "Last Judgment." 

The immense importance of the work of Michael 
Angelo should not lead us to be careless of many repre- 
sentations which preceded it, because these made up the 
obscure processes by which we gather into ourselves 
what our predecessors have done, partly by actual sight, 
partly by that mysterious tendency, half physical, to 
repeat the actions of our makers, whose very signature 
or movement of the hand we reproduce for generations. 
A wonderful series of sculptors led up to Michael, and 
each one in his way represented these very characters or 
others near them. Jacopo della Querela Michael must 
have known in Bologna in early days, and many have 



58 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

noticed the similar movement of the lips. Then there 
are Ghiberti and Brunelleschi and Michelozzo, and Dona- 
tello — Magister Donatellus de Florentia, Taglia Pietra, 
as he signed when he promised to do as well as any man 
ever did. Donatello was very near and yet very far ; 
the others seem almost ready to speak the language of 
Michael Angelo. Far back, John the Pisan gives us 
Prophets and even Sibyls (alongside of Plato and Daniel) 
and in his pulpit at Pistoia has almost indicated the idea 
of the Prophet accompanied by his inspirers. 

One recognizes a possible, indeed a necessary, memory 
of the old man's work by the younger, and we ask our- 
selves whether Michael Angelo at that date had seen 
Pistoia and John the Pisan's work. There the Sibyls 
sit or stand with an importance of intention which makes 
them, as it were, the ancestresses of Michael's. One 
is erect, arms crossed, absorbed in thought ; an angel 
flutters past her ; the Prophets almost scream on either 
side. In the same way another one is tortured by the 
insistence of the angel ; another again by the insistence of 
the Prophets who urge and appeal. Another resents, 
as it were, the spirit that is taking hold of her, the news 
and knowledge which are sure to oppress her and tear 
her to pieces in a moment. For hers is no pleasant task : 
it is a surrender of body and soul to something obscure 
and controlling. One more elderly and well balanced 
prophetess tells us what she knows. A little angel whis- 
pers softly, and two prophets have ceased to trouble her. 
Yet another is all disturbed, but gently, by what the 
angel tells her. Only her hand and the movement of her 
head tell us that this is no easy message that she gets, 
for we must remember that the word " angel " means a 




THE VIRGIN CROWNED BY ANGELS. (Botticelli) 



THE PROPHETS AND SIBYLS 6i 

messenger of the Most High, and is not only so in the 
Greek form which we inherit, but in the older forms of the 
biblical story. 

We have already spoken of the well-known painting 
which represents the story of the Sibyl who predicted 
to the Emperor Augustus the coming of the Child- 
Saviour. In memory of that event the Tiburtine Sibyl 
is painted with Augustus on either side of the arch above 
the high altar of the Church of Ara Coeli, built upon the 
spot where Augustus was said to have raised an altar 
to the Son of God (Ara Primogeniti Dei). We cannot 
do more than refer to the many renderings of Sibyls 
and Prophets made throughout Northern Europe until, 
as we remarked before, the memory of these subjects, 
in the Sibyls of late Italian painting, merely gives a 
name for some handsome figure filling the purpose of 
a picture inside of a frame. 

These beautiful beings look upward in some recognized 
religious expression (that is to say, the religious expression 
of the end of the great period) and one is reminded of the 
joke of one of their creators, a very illustrious painter, 
who said that he knew at least one hundred ways of 
making the eyes look up to heaven. And a greater than 
he has painted a charming series which we all go to see 
in Santa Maria della Pace in Rome. They are four in 
number; their names are Cumana, Phrygia, Persica, 
and Tiburtina — three at least beautiful and young, and 
above them lovely angels float with scrolls on which are 
written quotations. These are "The Resurrection of 
the Dead" for the Cumasan ; for the Persican, "He will 
have the lot of Death" ; for the Phrygian, "The Heavens 
surround the Sphere of the Earth"; and the Tiburtine, 



62 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

"I will open and arise." Then one angel holds the scroll 
with the seventh line of Virgil's Eclogue: "Already a 
new birth," etc. When the very great Raphael did these 
very beautiful things, he marked a distance between 
himself and Michael, who had given him the impulse 
which we feel regretfully. But the accidents of failure 
in such a gigantic career, the failure which belongs to the 
fatigued mind even of a genius, we have to excuse. We 
excuse it also because of the beauty pictured, and even 
as a sort of tribute to Michael, without whom these things 
could not have existed. One realizes how just were 
Raphael's thanks to Heaven that he had been permitted 
to live in the time of Michael Angelo. 



CHAPTER III 

THE ANGELS 

As Michael Angelo must stand for us as the great ex- 
ponent of the Sibyls, so Botticelli will rise naturally to our 
minds when we think of angels, and there are few painters 
of whom that can be said, however successful their repre- 
sentations may be. 

We have seen the angel in Michael's formidable 
expression, or Raphael's elegance and sweetness, and have 
even come down to Delacroix. But those angels, mes- 
sengers or creatures of the other world, have a meaning 
because of their errand, and the action of which they 
form part. The angels of Botticelli would be lovely 
always, and it is a part of their life, of the ideal that they 
represent, that they are sufficient for themselves, and 
come together on certain great occasions ; they are capable 
of extreme sadness, but that is because they are so sweet. 

We shall see them in triumphant circles in the "As- 
sumption of the Virgin," in the National Gallery in 
London. There are concentric circles, in the order of 
Dante's description, and in three ranks are patriarchs, 
prophets, apostles, and all the holy host. Round about 
them, and through them, angels sit or kneel or pray, 
and high above, around the Footstool, they collect 
as little children, along with the worshipping Madonna. 
Exultant joy, no vestige of anything but happiness, 
fills all, repeated every moment by these notes of sweet 
63 



64 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

beings who carry out the great theme. Below, as we 
know, the tomb is filled with flowers, and the Apostles 
look in, while far off" stretches a landscape which may be 
sad, as Leonardo thought,^ but which has all the far-away 
vision of a dream. The donors of the picture kneel on 
either side, the poet Matteo Palmieri and his wife. The 
painting gives us a view of angels in which we find it 
difficult to recognize the suggestion of anything contrary 
to Dante's orthodoxy, but which brought down the wrath 
of the clergy in the general fear of heresy. Vasari tells 
us how Botticelli made this picture for Matteo Palmieri 
" with celestial zones wherein are represented patriarchs, 
prophets,'' etc. All form a project traced out by Matteo, 
who was a lettered man and a man of merit, but certain 
malevolent people said that Matteo and Sandro had 
gravely sinned in heresy. The good Vasari goes on to 
say that it is not for him to judge ; it is enough that the 
figures of Sandro should be worthy of all praise, and like 
us, he recognizes the care with which he represented 
the circles of heaven and intermingled the holy figures 
with angels. So for two centuries the painting was veiled ; 
it was even supposed that it had been burned, as well as 
the heretical poem that had inspired it. Matteo Palmieri, 
a student of all things and of theology, occupied various 
positions of embassy and magistracy, and was buried 
in a holy chapel of the Church, but on some visit to the 
Italian borders where are the cavern of the Sibyl and Lake 
Avernus, the Pit of Hell and those fields where floats 
the vapour of an infernal world, he wrote a poem not to 
be opened until after his death. Its theology was based 

'Leonardo said of this and other landscapes of Sandro: "These landscapes are 
sad." 



THE ANGELS 67 

on the negation of eternal hell, following the doctrine 
of Origen, which was proscribed by the Church. 

Origen had arranged a view of angelic birth and life 
and hierarchy from which through sin some had fallen — 
how, we do not know exactly, — but there was a great 
battle, and Michael led the host that won. Many, how- 
ever, took neither the part of God nor of the future 
Satan, so they were thrown out of heaven along with 
the wicked angels, and fell into the bodies of men and 
animals and fish and succubi, or demons ; some even fell 
into the movement of the stars which they guide. Each 
of us then contains a bad angel, struggling against our 
gift of a good guardian angel. After migration from 
star to star, at the Last Judgment, in the end of every- 
thing, all these souls, these fallen angels, demons or men 
or what not in any shape, shall see open to them the 
gates of the heavenly Jerusalem. If I mistake not, 
this has something also to do with the Albigensian heresy. 
Palmieri was told this by the revelation of a friend of his 
who apparently spoke to him from the planet Mercury. 

The painting to my mind is a very wonderful thing, 
even if not all by Botticelli's hand, and I do not feel the 
opposition which some persons have to its being by him 
or its being good. I still take refuge with Vasari in the 
belief that it is a very wonderful creation. And in knowl- 
edge such as I have of the number of hands which must 
have worked on these multitudinous paintings throughout 
the Italian land, it is of no consequence except as a success 
or otherwise, whether it be all by the hand of Botticelli 
or partly by Botticini. 

Botticelli has come once within the ancient Jewish 
tradition in the "Coronation of the Virgin," where his 



68 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

angels are a blazing fire ; those above are the Sera- 
phim, but all below and around comes that special 
delight of his, suggested perhaps by his gala days in 
Florence, when girls danced even into churches, — the 
delight of dancing angels. Never again can that be 
taken up ; never again shall we have a mind attuned 
to both childish and aesthetic and over-delicate and over- 
spiritual raptures. Other artists, not so far removed 
from our painter in time, Gozzoli and Angelico, have 
invented and painted wonderful creatures who blow 
through golden trumpets or play on harps. I have in 
mind such a picture of heaven as the gold-grounded 
panel belonging to Mrs. Gardner in Boston, where the 
Virgin has left her tomb into which gaze the Apostles, 
and, happy and absorbed, is surrounded by joyous angels 
who dance about her and show the happiness that she 
has in another way. But they are not the whirling, 
twirling angels of Botticelli. As we said before, he must 
have seen the dance of girls, when they danced in religious 
joy around the confiscated works of Satan burnt by the 
partisans of Savonarola. And then he would have 
thought of their song of : 

"O youth with beautiful hair, let it fall and do not tie it; let 
it fall on thy shoulders. It seems like threads of gold and silk. 

"Beautiful is the hair, and beautiful he who wears it. 

"O youth, how beautiful dost thou pass! where thou passest 
the tree flowers. For thee the tree flowers as the roses in April. 

"When I see thee I think I see the sun and the moon, and I have 
hold of Paradise. 

"O youth, born in Paradise, why dost thou look for flowers when 
such beauties flower upon thy white face .? They are red and they are 
white, and they are of every colour, for thy face is such as a garden 
of roses. 




THE NATIVITY. (Botticelli) 



THE ANGELS 71 

"O youth with the curly hair, O youth with the golden hair that 
parts around thy face, thou dost appear an angel seen from heaven, 
an angel of the Church, an angel of Paradise . . . ." 

As we know, at the end of his life, after the great 
horror of the ecclesiastical murder of Savonarola, whom 
he had followed, he painted a wonderful picture of the 
Nativity which is in the National Gallery, London. It 
is almost all beauty ; a little queerness only in the strange 
cavern which serves as a stable for the ass and the ox, 
outside of which is the leaning shelter under which the 
sweet Mother looks down upon her sweet Child, while 
Joseph, tired with the journey, is folded up in fatigue 
and sleep. An angel stretches out behind him a hand 
holding a branch and waving an inscription. There are 
three strangers of different ages there, and the Wise Men, 
and they balance two other beings who are more evi- 
dently shepherds and working people, from one of whom 
another angel unwraps a hood as if to take away even 
external blindness. He and all are crowned with the 
olive of peace. Everywhere the flower or the plant 
sprouts. Among roots and the clefts of the rock the 
devils crouch and disappear; one almost hears the hiss 
and spit of the reptiles whose size and whose appearance 
are hardly noticed in the peace and the joy and the sweet- 
ness of this marvellous religious song. 

In the foreground is the memory of tragedy. Three 
angels embrace the Dominican monks ; they kiss and 
hug them in the joy of their escape from the awful world 
which has destroyed their earthly figures in the fire. 
They are there : Savonarola and Buonvicini and MarufR. 
Their faces are no longer those which we know in that 
solemn portrait of the great reformer. They belong 



72 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

to the Sun ; they are young and sweet and beautiful 
and gay. Of course it is to them that the call of the 
angels has been addressed; they are the men "of good- 
will." 

Then above, in obscure Greek, on the edge of the 
canvas, are words which Sir Sidney Colvin reads thus : 

"This painting was painted at the end of the year 1500 during the 
troubles of Italy, by me, Alessandro, about the middle of that period 
at the beginning of which was verified the eleventh chapter of Saint 
John the Evangelist, and the second woe of the Apocalypse, when 
Satan was let loose on earth for three years and a half. Passed that 
delay, the demon shall be chained up, and we shall see him crushed 
under foot as in this painting." 

The joy of the angels, as we see, is not the joy of this 
world, and we have another example of what we all know 
but so rarely realize, — the division of our minds and 
souls so that we are capable of grief and joy at the same 
moment. Indeed if Plato is not out, they are but forms 
of one feeling. How much our good friend Botticelli 
may have known of Plato, we do not directly know, but 
Plato was in the air, as the French say, as, for instance, 
when Marsilio Ficino, who was Cardinal of Fiesole, 
preached the Timaeus at Florence at the Church of the 
Angels saying: "In the centre of this church, we wish 
to expose the religious philosophy of our Plato ; we wish 
to contemplate divine truth in the abode of angels. Let 
us enter, my very dear brothers, with a very candid 
soul." 

Three more angels upon the roof kneel and sing the 
*' Gloria in Excelsis," already written in a book. Above 
them whirls a gay round of delighted beings carrying 
olive boughs as all the others do, and joining hands and 



THE ANGELS 75 

branches in such an ecstasy as no words can describe. 
No human being ever has done more than give the type 
of such motion of transport, and herein our painter is, 
as far as we know, the painter of angels. 

In the Sistine Chapel, above the spaces of the Sibyls 
and Prophets, angelic figures float within the cloak of 
the God of Israel in Michael Angelo's paintings. Their 
being wingless is in the proper Jewish tradition ; the 
wing does not come until very late, and in Rembrandt's 
great painting, "The Sacrifice of Manoah," the angel 
disappears without wings. He disappears ; we see him 
fade in the smoke of the flames of the sacrifice, and we rec- 
ognize the tradition of the angel vanishing in such manner. 
We remember that he had no distinctive name ; he ap- 
peared as other men, and in Rembrandt's painting he is 
dressed in a gown, with long hair and crowned head, while 
husband and wife kneel and fear and believe and doubt 
before the smoking embers. This is no sweetly angelic 
figure ; this is the story of the Bible. One realizes how 
that floating form could have been taken for any one (in a 
conversation with the good woman of the house who had 
gone into the field), and the doubts of husband and wife 
as to who this accidental stranger may be. The plainness 
of the Bible story, which carries its own authenticity in 
its words, is there in Rembrandt's painting, as it might 
have happened had he been there. For let us notice 
that things happen with him ;. he does not invent 
them. 

We are not unnaturally brought back to the question 
of the angelic continuation by the reference to expression 
in Christian art. If we think for a moment we shall 
find the expression of an angel rarely more than that of 



76 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

a messenger delivering himself of his duty, a witness 
of joy or sorrow. Only very rarely does he come to the 
actual help of the saint or testify through his face his 
joy and feeling. He weeps desolately at the great drama 
of the Passion, but even there it is a suggestion of an 
elementary power weeping and suffering, like nature 
itself torn by the agony of its Maker. 

The question of what the angels really are is perhaps 
worth bringing up in this connection. They are not 
far from the Daemons of the Greek thought who flit 
in and out of Greek story, who tell Socrates, for instance, 
what he is to do, and bid him suffer death rather than 
go back on his duty. That is the protective good angel 
of the Jewish teaching, perhaps a freed soul coming back 
to take part in human actions. The rabbinical traditions 
are not quite averse to some meaning of that kind. 

Rembrandt has elsewhere made them as they may have 
appeared to Abraham, when they sit and discuss under 
different shapes, and when Sarah listens to these con- 
versations ; those angels must have had a form different 
from that needed for the solemn necessities of a short 
message. 

Quite earthly they are in one sense, and Rembrandt 
has not added wings, which were often tacked on like 
those of birds. All is real, like the food of the Patriarch 
and the knife with which he is about to cut the most 
earthly bit of meat. But certainly the three angels are 
interested in their talk. They have become absolutely 
human, and we can see in each face the reflection of the 
receiving of their news by Abraham. They are as it 
were persuading him, while his face expresses the proper 
degree of doubt. Even the "bird of God" in the fore- 



THE ANGELS T] 

ground, quite a little boy, tells you by the merest profile 
how anxiously he follows the belief of the Patriarch. 

Rembrandt's angels are few, notwithstanding the 
many chances he had of using them. But the few all 
have that same look of extreme interest in their earthly 
work. The angel in Daniel's vision makes him see, 
whether he wills it or not, the animal that represents the 
coming Kingdom, and in the angel wrestling with 
Jacob there is also the expression of having thoroughly 
entered into human form and meaning, but with infinite 
superiority of control. 



CHAPTER IV 

JOACHIM AND ANNA. PRESENTATION OF THE VIRGIN. 
THE MARRIAGE OF THE VIRGIN 

Saint John Damascene says, "From the tree of Jesse 
stretches the branch on which blooms the divine flower; 
from Anna comes the vine which has given us the fruit." 
He was speaking of the solemn festival of the birth of 
Mary. In his time the apocryphal gospel of James was 
becoming popular. Therein we are told that Joachim, 
a very rich man, offered great gifts to the Lord ; but this 
legend went on to say that at one of the great religious 
festivals where he with the other sons of Israel brought 
offerings to the Temple, Reuben refused those of Joa- 
chim, telling him, "Thou shouldst not offer gifts to the 
Lord ; thou hast no descent in Israel." Joachim's grief 
was great, for he knew that all the Jews of his tribe had 
left successors, and so, abstaining from appearing at his 
home, he went into the desert, and there he remained 
forty days and forty nights, fasting. Meanwhile, his 
wife, Anna, wept over having no children. As'she remarked 
upon the felicity of virgin beasts who (as it was then 
thought) were not cut off from bearing young, the angel 
of the Lord appeared and told her that she should become 
a mother. She was told in the same way that Joachim 
was returning to her, he also having received celestial 
announcement. At the house door Anna met him and 
threw her arms around his neck in joy. Next day Joa- 
78 



JOACHIM AND ANNA 79 

chim made his offerings, which were no longer refused, 
and returned home in happiness, and so was born Mary, 
according to the Gospel of James. 

In some gnostic story, Joachim is urged by an angel 
to offer a holocaust to the Lord, which he does, and the 
angel returns to heaven in the smoke- of the sacrifice. 
Whereupon Joachim falls upon . his face and remains 
from the sixth hour up to the ninth. Servants in fright 
lift him up, and learning of the vision, they exhort him 
to return to his wife. At the Golden Gate of Jerusalem, 
the end of a long journey, he meets Anna. Thus it is in 
the apocryphal gospels ; and the story is so told by Giotto. 

The sentiment of pagan antiquity appears in one of 
the earlier images, a- Greek manuscript of 1025, wherein 
Anna lies in bed and three women bring her food or gifts 
from outside, — a record of the three Parcse, Clotho, 
Lachesis, and Atropos, who were present when a child 
opened its eyes to life. 

This legend begins to be lifted into the height of beauty 
and importance when Giotto takes hold of it. The 
frescoes in Padua begin with the enclosure, a priestly 
place within which stands the priest with a mitre upon 
his head, who absolves a kneeling worshipper. Outside 
of this chancel, if it may be so named, lies an empty 
pulpit, and behind the priest is a form of ciborium, sup- 
ported by columns, all of which in some way records 
the Temple. Outside of the little enclosure stands 
Reuben, also mitred, with long white beard and curled 
hair falling upon his shoulders, frowning in indignation. 
Joachim, a dignified and beautiful figure, not at all a 
broken-down ancient man, turns away, grasping in his 
hand the offering refused. 



8o THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

In the next painting we see him walking ; he has 
turned the corner of some rocks, and is coming to his 
own sheepfold ; he looks down absorbed in thought, not 
noticing the delight of the dog welcoming him. Two of 
the shepherds, on seeing their master approaching in 
meditation, look at each other, questioning, as if to ask 
what has happened. Meanwhile the door of the sheep- 
fold is open and the sheep scatter out. 

In another picture an angel speaks to Anna in her 
imaginary little house. He comes through the window 
suddenly like a bird, and she gazes in surprise, kneeling, 
but already her folded hands accept the grace of the 
Lord. Outside, her servant is spinning long threads 
from her distaff. 

Again, in another painting Joachim kneels crouching 
before an altar upon which he has offered the holocaust 
of a lamb, according to the divine word told by an angel 
who stands at some distance from him, giving the order 
with his hand — a beautiful and most classical figure. 
At the angel Joachim gazes with most intent eye. Flame 
and smoke pour up from the altar ; another angel dis- 
appears, passing into the cloud from which the hand of 
God is extended as in the early Christian works. A 
shepherd stands gazing into the sky behind his master. 
Around them play the sheep. 

We have, also, the Presentation of Mary. In explain- 
ing certain great works of art for which we rightly care, 
the imaginary, the poetic comment, has its place as well 
as the facts of the real truth. And in thinking of the Gos- 
pel story we must remember that in the far-away begin- 
ning there was the settlement of the Church and of the 




THE SACRIFICE OF JOACHIM. (Giotto) 



JOACHIM AND ANNA 83 

State, the fusion of various nationalities, many gospels, 
and many accounts of the Gospel story, some having no 
particular bias, others charged with heretical meaning. 
All these were a manner of spiritual help and also of rela- 
tive record, making up for the paucity of what the Church 
had decided to be the correct one. The question of 
heresy — the question of a version being in the direction 
of such and such a deviation from the law of Church and 
councils — was settled afterward. Meanwhile, the ne- 
cessity for something more than mere record was filled 
by the apocryphal gospels. And so we shall take up the 
apocryphal gospel of the Nativity, wherein Anna goes to 
the Temple with Joachim to make the usual offering. 
She left Mary to be trained with other maidens who were 
devoted to the worship and praise of the Lord. The 
simple story, that becomes so Important in certain paint- 
ings, tells us how, when the child came to the Temple, 
she ran up the many stairs without looking to right or 
left, and all were astonished, for she appeared no longer 
a little child, and her figure was white as of snow, and 
all she said was full of grace. In Eastern art, this pro- 
cession of the child going to the Temple shows her of 
quite a marriageable age, as If fit for a bridal ceremony. 
In the West, we come at once to Giotto, telling us the 
story as if it were a reality. The little girl has already 
got up the fantastic steps, types of the real ones, and 
stands with joined hands, waiting, while her mother, 
holding her carefully, presents her with some shade of 
anxiety. The old man Zacharlah, bearded and grave, 
reaches his two hands to the child, while the crowd of 
other young creatures, some much older and wearing 
semi-monastic clothing, gather in a curious group together. 



84 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

Joachim, at the foot of the stairs, looks at the scene, 
but keeps an eye on the servant bearing gifts for the 
Temple. Round about, various priests and Levites 
look and comment. With Giotto, a temple of Israel 
becomes an Italian cloister. Continuously, after him, 
the cloister was distinguished from the church, according 
to what some one wrote in the twelfth century as to the 
dwelling of the Virgin being "near the outside portals 
and the nearest to the altar." In one of these early 
pictures one sees the steps, fifteen according to Byzan- 
tine tradition (because just so many were the psalms), 
and inside of the portico the momentarily cloistered 
virgins can be seen with musical instruments, singing 
the canticles of David. And so they are shown in the 
Italian representations, as with Gaddi and John of 
Milan. Zachariah and his assistants, at the entrance 
of the church, clad in sacramental garments, wait to 
receive the little maiden. From various places outside 
and within the columns of the interior, men and women 
look at the ceremony. Mary's father and mother stand 
at the foot of the steps ; and children gather about sur- 
prised and amused, while others are climbing the stairs. 
All this has become more and more of a grand scene, as 
of a well-understood celebration. Occasionally Mary 
turns round to her parents, as if to let them see that she 
understands her part. There is a very noble sculpture 
by Orcagna in Florence. In the tabernacle in Or San 
Michele, which is an octagon, and where he was obliged 
to follow symmetry rigorously in all the bas-reliefs, Mary 
turns her back to us and climbs the little steps of the 
Temple. There, attended by two Levites, the high 
priest waits for the child, as he stands at the door. Some 




THE PRESENTATION OF THE VIRGIN. (Sodoma) 



JOACHIM AND ANNA 87 

of the maidens of the Temple can be seen ; one of them 
holds a psalterion. Mary has the Book of Divine Doc- 
trine in one hand, and turns slightly to her parents, point- 
ing at the Temple where she is to enter, without intention 
of return. Further down (which fact is told by differ- 
ence of size), the father and mother kneel, patiently 
waiting for their child. In this case the Virgin cares 
little. There are cases when, on the contrary, she shows 
her sorrow at leaving her father and mother. Instead 
of the young girl in some of these works (which have a 
sort of symbolism) we see in a lovely painting by that 
delightful artist, the Sodoma, a little child of a few years 
old taken hold of by the high priest, who grasps her arm. 
She turns sweetly, smiling at her mother, who kneels 
on the steps ; no longer fifteen as by old tradition. 
The portico opens into air; columns stand about, and so 
do fair women and majestic figures of men. Thus a 
charming domestic anecdote was placed within the arbi- 
trary composition. 

Not long afterward Venice had begun the final rep- 
resentations. Cima da Conegliano places at the foot of 
the stair that same old woman whom we shall find in the 
great painting of Titian. Up the long steps, which we 
see on edge, a little girl mounts slowly and with care, 
for the steps are very high. Above, the Levites and a 
Temple virgin stand waiting for the child. Below are 
father and mother and relatives, clad in correct oriental 
dress according to the day of the painter. A beautiful 
landscape, perhaps a reminiscence, opens far back. 
Some little children linger to see what will happen. 
Far away, people of Eastern costume and manner wander 
through porticos, and in front two stand so near to us 



88 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

that we can see they are portraits. This is at Dresden, 
a beautiful painting in itself, even if we did not under- 
stand its subject. In Milan, at the Brera, there is a 
Carpaccio which gives us the story on a much smaller 
scale. On some little steps again we see our small maiden 
holding her votive candle, her long hair down her back, 
kneeling before she rises to be welcomed by the high 
priest. Inside the cloister, venerable Levites stand. 
At the foot of the stairs, her mother and father watch, 
with others of the family. A boy looks up, in conversation 
with one of the good-natured Levites, who is probably 
ordering him away, for the child has brought a tame deer 
with him, and is too near for the proper respect of the 
Church. 

Then Tintoretto uses this subject for one of his great 
triumphs of composition, an ideal subject, for more than 
ever the story is disguised. Up circular steps one looks, 
and sees above grave figures of sacerdotal import. Up 
those steps a tall woman moves with her baby. Below, 
another noble Venetian woman shows to her little girl 
a faraway little maiden detached against the sky at the 
top of that long flight of stairs. Along these many steps, 
not very well seen, people are seated. One stands and 
looks around ; perhaps the father. An indifferent woman 
sits on the lower step playing with her child. We feel 
that, with Tintoretto, the thing happened so and he 
could not help it ; he had to use all his marvellous powers 
of painting, of drawing, of composition. Then, at length, 
comes the final representation, famous throughout the 
world — the great Titian at present in the Gallery of the 
Academy at Venice, there entirely out of place, and 
deprived thereby of half its majesty. It represents a 




THE PRESENTATION OF THE \1RGIN. (Carpaccio) 



JOACHIM AND ANNA 91 

ceremony wherein senators and Important noblemen of 
the Republic appear, in the open space before a building 
with Corinthian capitals and columns and pilasters ; 
a palace out of which look down the gentry, curiously 
watching. In the distance are the beautiful mountains 
of his native place, and this adds still more to the cer- 
tainty that we are within the marble limits of a spacious 
outer court in an ideal Venice. Meanwhile, the pretty 
little Mary, dressed in blue, her long hair tied in a tress, 
lifts her skirt as she ascends the staircase, at the head of 
which the high priest is ready to receive her. Two 
important figures, like those of cardinals, stand near 
the high priest. One of them comes down from an inside 
stairs, a lame man with a cane, leaning heavily on the 
little balustrade. Mother Anna seems to rejoice in the 
middle of the multitude below, but one of her relatives 
or friends points to the child in a sort of admiration or 
fear. Meanwhile, near us, a little boy plays with a dog, 
a senator gives alms to a poor woman holding a naked 
baby in her arms ; and in front of the steps sits an old 
woman, who stops counting her money for a moment and 
looks with astonishment at the procession of people com- 
ing up to the Temple. Thus Titian placed, more decid- 
edly than was given to any one else, the Sacred Story in 
a Venice of joy and senatorial importance ; his own 
Venice, of which he was the great exponent. 

Were we to stand before the painting of Giotto in 
Padua, we should find it difficult to realize, in our present 
habit of passing over legends, how important these legends 
once were, how they came from early times, how they 
were the gospel truth until the Church decided to leave 



92 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

them out. The proto-evangel of Saint John, which 
tells of the birth of the Virgin and of her sojourn in the 
Temple, comes at length to her espousals. By order of 
an angel, Zachariah called out the unmarried men and 
ordered them to bring each one a staff ; and also announced 
that the Lord would tell him by means of some sign on 
whom the choice should fall. Joseph joined the num- 
ber ; the high priest Abiathar received these staves and 
prayed within the Temple. No sign appeared of the 
divine choice until at length Joseph came up with his 
staif, and at once on his head a dove alighted. Zachariah 
said to him : "God hath elected thee to take this virgin," 
but he refused, saying: "I have children, and I am an 
old man, and she is young, very young; I should dis- 
grace myself in the eyes of the sons of Israel." Then 
the high priest threatened him, reminding him of the 
punishment of the disobedient. So Joseph took the 
Virgin and said to her : "I shall bring thee to my house, 
but I shall have also to go to my work," for he was a 
carpenter. Now it happened that the priests wished a 
veil for the Temple, so that virgins of the tribe of Israel 
were called, and among them also Mary, because she, too, 
was of the tribe of David. The choice of colours was 
made by lot ; gold and yellow and scarlet and purple, 
which last Mary took away to weave. . 

This detail of the legend, "The Weaving of the 
Cloth," is an echo of the Roman world. It was a 
tradition and habit that when brides left their families 
for the home of the husband, the women present 
should call out, as we remember in Latin verses, 
"tallassio," the name of a basket for wool, which cry 
was to recall to the bride her home' duties as the 



JOACHIM AND ANNA 95 

spinner of wool ; and with that they beat their hands 
in measure. 

We need not describe the Byzantine or Latin draw- 
ings, for we shall come as usual to Giotto. We see the 
unmarried men of the tribe of David all reaching out 
their staves to the high priest, who is seated behind a 
desk. They come in gently, with some doubt : Joseph 
also, with white hair, and alone. The next picture is 
the contest of these pretenders to the hand of the 
Virgin. On the altar, all fastened together in a bunch, 
are the staves ; the supplicants, kneeling anxiously, look 
forward in many different attitudes of expectation, await- 
ing the celestial choice. The high priest has left his seat 
behind the altar and kneels with two Levites. Then we 
see that the miracle has taken place and Joseph, whose 
staff now has bloomed, while a dove lights upon it, 
receives the hand of the Virgin to place upon it the ring 
handed to him by the high priest. The son of the high 
priest steps up with the intention of striking his rival 
Joseph. Passing outside of the picture, the men who have 
lost show their despite in various ways ; one of them breaks 
or bends his staff, a ceremony repeated many times in 
other paintings. Then, in yet another picture Mary, 
followed by her companions, as a queen with her ladies, 
walks alone, a delightfully majestic and yet timid figure, 
toward her home, while young men crowned with flowers 
play on violins and other musical instruments. From 
the house above them a branch of palm spreads out — 
a type of peace. Later, in the fifteenth century, the pic- 
tures remain the same in their general meaning, but they 
vary with the chance of describing something more pic- 
turesque than the usual orderly disposition. But before 



96 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

them the followers of Giotto will have told us this story 
in many ways, and in one or two there appears the sign 
of a future of greater development, as in the painting of 
John of Milan in Santa Croce, Florence. There the 
women of the Temple and their companions are grouped 
closely around the high priest, so that there is just 
room for the bride and bridegroom to join hands. Or- 
cagna gives us a type of marriage in the famous set of bas- 
reliefs of the Baptistery. Two noble figures, Mary and 
Joseph, stand beside one another. Joseph still bears his 
flowering staff ; his right hand passes a ring over the 
finger of Mary, and the high priest carefully lifts the 
bride's arm. On the side are seen two angry suitors, 
beautifully grouped to finish the composition. We 
are in 1300, but the next century, and indeed the entire 
future of possible sculpture, is marked in such simple work 
as that on which the great Orcagna has put his hand. Then 
Angelico spreads out the scene in a semi-ecclesiastical way, 
so that we know it has some hidden meaning. It is outside 
of the Temple. The Virgin stretches her arm towards 
Joseph, the women are grouped apart, and the men show 
that they are angry in the usual way. Even the Blessed 
Monk brings in some special point of the tradition not 
known to us, for one of the men raises a fist to strike poor 
Joseph at the altar. Ghirlandajo in Florence again gives 
us the crowd and Joseph struck by one of the unmarried. 
Luini at Saronno tells a story in his own manner, the 
beautiful manner personal to himself, but derived from 
Northern antecedents. The bride and bridegroom are 
somewhat separated ; the grouping of the young men is 
what we might expect from one of those lovers of young 
men that circle around Leonardo ; the disappointed 




THE MARRIAGE OF THE VIRGIN. (Giotto) 



JOACHIM AND ANNA 99 

suitors show no anger; nothing but a gentle sweetness 
and melancholy. In Milan, the Venetian Carpaccio 
paints the preparation or the beginning of the ceremony. 
Joseph goes up the steps. Mary at a distance folds her 
hands, accepting the declared facts. The high priest 
speaks. His clergy listen respectfully. Far off, in a 
Renaissance Church with Jewish details of religious 
importance, the unsuccessful candidates break their 
staves and hold up hands, etc. Then comes Raphael, 
closing the cycle for us at least, for we have all been 
taught to notice the result of his entrance into Italian 
fame. The painting is almost too well known to describe. 
It has, far at the back, the creation of a special building, 
foreshadowing the future of the architectural development 
which is to come, and the picture is filled with the grace 
and almost the indifference of the great man. The 
stupid or barbarous beginning, developed out of strange 
semi-Judaic inventions and traditions, comes here at 
length to a perfection which is classical, but for which 
there is no more future. The religious story is really 
over. The youthful Raphael may have felt the breath 
of Siena, and also the more fantastic traditions were 
fading before the want of interest or the slight frown of 
the Church. Moreover, there comes now a period of 
devotion to special saints, representations of the givers 
of particular graces. In following their traditions, in 
grouping them about the Holy Family, the painter could 
entrust his talent to his feelings, sure to be safe from 
ecclesiastical criticism, which could not reach works of 
art not intended to be doctrinal. 

We may return to a special case connected with our 
story — to a representation of Saint Anna. In Northern 



loo THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

Europe, she was almost always the patroness of societies 
of a maternal character, where girls were educated and 
taken care of, for Saint Anna, mother of the Virgin, must 
have formed the most perfect of the daughters of man, 
and it was shown how she herself taught her child to read, 
that Mary might learn the words of the Lord and meditate 
upon them. One of the most modern of all artists, 
Delacroix, has painted that subject, perhaps decisively. 
It is well known that there was a battle over it in 1845, 
and it was refused at the Salon. It belonged to George 
Sand, and there is a story about it which is worth quoting. 
Delacroix, returning from some little walk at Nohant, 
said to her, he being her guest : " I saw in the park 
there a subject which touched me deeply. It would be 
the motive of a superb painting. It was your farmer's 
wife with her young daughter. I was able to gaze at 
them for plenty of time, from behind a bush where they 
could not see me. They were both seated on the trunk 
of a tree. The older woman had her hand placed on the 
further shoulder of the child, who was taking with great 
care a lesson in reading. If I only had a canvas, I should 
paint that subject at once." "It is a pity," answered 
George Sand; "I have no canvas." On which Dela- 
croix, seeing a package in a corner of the hall, found 
within some heavy linen meant for use as kitchen aprons, 
and at once began the work, which shows the want of 
preparation of the canvas for the use to which it was put, as 
some parts have disappeared more than others. The Virgin 
is partly leaning and partly seated, and follows in the big 
book which Saint Anna spreads out on her knees before 
her. It is an idyll of peace and simplicity, far away from 
the turmoil and cruelty of the fight for life in the world. 



CHAPTER V 

THE ANNUNCIATION 

On the vaulting of the fourth chamber In the Catacomb 
of Priscilla appears the figure of a woman seated, to whom 
a youth stretches a right hand lifted as if in announce- 
ment. Upon that blackened and ruined plaster is the first 
form of a representation which was soon swept into the 
movement of the world, which we can follow in its devel- 
opment and variations, and in which we see the change 
of ideas or sentiment, as art brought together tradition 
and piety and was in all cases influenced by national 
character. Devotion to the Madonna, as the Italians 
called her (which has remained for us as the name for 
the image of Mary in painting), increased, as we know, 
through the ages, and although it has waned, there is 
still, to many souls, a religious necessity for worshipping 
the Christ as intimately united with the Mother who 
bore Him, 

So the humble handmaiden of the catacombs becomes 
the glorified Queen, the Byzantine Priestess, and finally 
the Lady of Maternal Joy. The figure who speaks 
to her shall sometimes take the look of the glorious an- 
tique images of Victory, winged and splendid, or in 
sweetness of love and adoration shall kneel smiling, 
crowned perhaps with flowers before his return to 
heaven. But from an early moment in the Middle 
Ages the look of the scene remains the same. The 
103 



I04 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

Church and tradition keep for this beautiful oppor- 
tunity of art a respectful habit of representation. 

In the catacomb, where the painting is of the third 
century, Gabriel speaks to the Mother of Christ seated, 
without wings, without the staff of travel or the sceptre, 
and quite as a human being. The early Christian artist 
may have remembered the pictures of Telemachus and 
Penelope, or Paris and Helen, as some acute eyes have 
been tempted to notice in the Pompeian pictures. But 
whether from incapacity or innocence of meaning, there 
is nothing in this first painting which does not belong 
to the moment ; the humble following in danger and in 
darkness of a faith not made splendid by art or by any 
form of external power. The noble figure of Mary in 
the future, even too grand at times for our reading of 
the story, is far from the modest Mary guardedly moving 
a hand while the angel tells her that she has found grace 
before the Lord. The interpretation of the Gospel of 
Saint Luke in that modest form of the Annunciation in 
the catacomb has passed into the ages. 

In the East the Gospel of Saint James (also in the 
third century) tells us of Mary going for water while a 
voice calls to her. She looks right and left, and, fright- 
ened, enters her house and begins again to weave the 
purple tissue which it was her duty and privilege to make 
for the Temple. She placed aside the water vase ; then 
the angel appeared and said to her, "Do not fear, Mary," 
and the other words of the Gospel. 

The basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore was erected 
in the fifth century, as a sign of victories over the Nes- 
torians. In its great mosaic she appears as sovereign 
of the inhabitants of heaven. A crown of jewels binds 



THE ANNUNCIATION 105 

her head; she wears rich clothing with embroideries, 
is seated on an ornamental chair, and angels surround 
the throne. She is at work, but has stopped while 
the messenger from on high salutes her with venera- 
tion. The angels have the splendour of the pagan glories, 
and, indeed, another of the apocryphal gospels tells us 
that Gabriel filled Mary's rooms with light, and that 
she was accustomed to the illumination. 

Some marks of all this we find in the well-known 
sarcophagus which is near the tomb of Dante, and which 
carries out the reminiscence of antique art. Mary is 
spinning, with a basket full of threads beside her, and 
more are hanging from the loom. A noble angel, an 
imitation of some antique, bends slightly toward her and 
lifts a hand in salutation. Mary, seated like an Egyptian 
figure, is immovable. 

On the contrary, in an old ivory at Ravenna, which 
belongs to the time of Justinian, there is a distinct rising 
of the Virgin, who abandons her spinning, lifts her hand 
in astonishment, and seems to withdraw somewhat from 
the look of the angel, who has still the antique tunic and 
pallium, and points with his right hand. He has great 
wings, and for the first time shows the nimbus, the ancient 
symbol of glory and empire. There is an attempt at 
retaining the antique, but it is a mere commonplace, only 
valuable because so little art of that age remains to us. 

An ivory in Milan (of the Trivulzio collection) has 
a special charm of meaning and expression. The Virgin 
turns around in astonishment ; she wraps herself within 
herself, and this graceful Idea, however naively ex- 
pressed here, will be the type of the future figures of 
the Madonna. 



io6 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

In the East, of course, the tendency has been to a 
petrifaction of types and stories and meanings, under 
the constant supervision and direction of the clergy, 
as is the case, even at the present day, in the laid- 
down laws of the Greek Church. The charming ex- 
ample of the Greek monk James in the Vatican library 
brings in an oriental efflorescence of delight in mere 
beauty; he has attempted to render with colours the 
different moments of antique legends and apocryphal 
texts. The Virgin touches the water jar and moves 
her head to listen to the voice of the angel who speaks 
from heaven. Then she goes back into her house and 
sits upon a seat covered with white and red and blue 
ornaments, spinning the purple veil, while an angel 
bends the knee before her. 

In the baptismal font of Saint John at Verona there 
is a dramatic account quite different from anything 
before or after, and exceptional beyond measure. A 
mere account of it will show how an imaginative artist 
can disturb the current and indicate strange possibilities. 

The drama expresses the perturbation of the Virgin. 
The angel advances toward her with a strong step, the 
movement accentuated by his draperies and by his 
stretched-out wings. She rises to her feet suddenly, 
taking hold of the spindle with one hand and pushing 
it behind her, and raises the left hand almost as if 
in self-defence, even drawing back a foot as though afraid 
of the contact of the messenger. In the background two 
female figures lift curtains ; perhaps their figures may be 
the beginning of the future lifting of curtains by angels, 
expecially the angel of the tomb. Here they look like 
attendants or friends of the family, or- perhaps the two 



THE ANNUNCIATION 109 

women associated with the Virgin's story ; and we may 
connect with their movement, or with their expression 
and their manner, an idea of curiosity which is distinctly 
given in one representation, a fresco in the Church of 
Saint Urban. 

Dante gives to the archangel a palm, and the palm 
begins to be an accepted attribute ; in other paintings 
the branch of olive appears, and then in the fourteenth 
century we find flowering lilies — at first perhaps derived 
from the imperial sceptre — also the lily of the valley, 
among the opening blossoms of a garden. The whole 
poetry of Christian art offers its flowers to the image of 
Mary. Later they cover the very space of the scene 
with gardens of suggested beauty. No longer does 
Mary work, but she holds a roll, or often a book. In the 
stories of apocryphal gospels the life of Mary is told, 
and how she gave to prayer her early hours, and to work 
so long, and then to prayer again, and then she meditated 
on the laws of God and sang the canticles of David. 

Then we find the arrangement of gold in which appears 
the dove of the Holy Ghost. The image of the ray of 
light, natural as we feel it, had to begin, and Tertullian 
is quoted as saying that "the Word came from God 
like a ray of light," but the poems of the Church give 
us in many forms of verse the images which we have 
accepted. Perhaps some antique tradition may have 
suggested, through the forms of Jove commanding the 
clouds, the image of the Eternal God who appears in the 
later paintings. 

Giotto in the chapel at Padua represents the Virgin 
receiving the divine message serenely. With Taddeo 
Bartolo she is pensive. She withdraws in fear in some 



no THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

of the bas-reliefs of Orvieto ; in the painting of Memmi 
in the gallery of the Ufhzi she seems the noble image of 
purity, and at the words of the archangel turns to the 
left, while she lifts a mantle as if to give herself protec- 
tion. Occasionally she sits on some antique chair with 
cushions, her clothing adorned with gold, or in Gothic 
edifices decorated with stars ; again, through the door of 
the chamber one sees, inside, the bed of the Virgin ; 
sometimes the chamber has a regal appearance with old- 
time marbles and splendid tiling, coverings of oriental 
carpets, and curtains embroidered with gold, while she 
herself has a crown of gems on her blond hair, and gold 
illuminating her mantle. In such a way in the fourteenth 
century was the Virgin honoured. 

The extended hand, the oratorical gesture, was used 
when the antique form of the archangel's attitude was 
preserved. Sometimes Gabriel crosses his arms over 
his breast as he kneels before Mary, while she in humility 
also bends the knee. 

In the work of the Beato Angelico, the Virgin kneels 
in a convent cell of San Marco, visible to the eyes of the 
other pious monks, probably to Savonarola, who must have 
seen it when he was at home ; her slender figure kneels 
on the high bench, the angel, with arms crossed gently, 
speaks as if giving her a lesson ; obedience, humility, 
attention to what she is told appear in every line of the 
figure of Our Lady ; the fame of the painting is world- 
wide. The great Annunciation of Cortona is less known. 
There Gabriel comes in with an impetuosity very much 
in the feeling of the dear monk, who has used the same 
movement several times, and the Angel's wings pass be- 
tween the little columns of the chamber. His hands 



THE ANNUNCIATION 113 

demonstrate and teach ; one points to the Virgin and 
the other above, as if to say : "This is what shall happen 
to thee, so mind how thou receivest it." He is a real 
angel, a messenger under orders, a being whose very 
existence is that of the message, the carrying out of some 
duty. 

In other cases of Fra Angelico's treatment of the 
subject we see how the real meaning of the story has 
filled him. The plan upon which he works is different 
from that of the mere artist, even if pious, or touched with 
sympathy. It is like an exposition of doctrine. And 
yet we know how his technical work advances the entire 
trend of Italian art, and we can admire the accuracy 
of gesture or motion and certain special points of form 
or adornment. The Annunciation has with him some- 
thing peculiarly virginal and simple ; later the Madonna 
enthroned, or lying in momentary death, is made more 
stately, and so again when she triumphs in her Assumption 
or in the crowning of her by her Son. Others have had 
the same meaning ; Lorenzo Monaco gives us a kneeling 
Gabriel with one hand also explaining a lesson, while 
the Virgin puts her hand to her throat as if her breath 
stopped short, as one does at hearing some sudden 
news. 

In another Angelico, against a golden background, 
Gabriel rushes in as before, and the Madonna bends 
with a sweet expression of curiosity. 

At Perugia the angel kneels at ease, carefully explain- 
ing, while Mary follows his tremendous message. 

Or again in another convent room in San Marco 
(on the door opening into a little cell) the Virgin sits 
upon a wooden bench, and all is told as if kept within 



114 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

the habits of ecclesiastical life. What exactly the good 
monk would have given us later, had he followed this 
subject all his life, one cannot quite guess, but his inten- 
tion fits most beautifully the fact that so many of these 
renderings of his beloved protectress belong to his youth. 
Indeed, this youthfulness passes occasionally into the 
bearer of the message, and gives him the look of some 
young novice of the convent. 

We must go back and contribute some homage of 
admiration to other men less capable, sometimes even 
awkward. In the painting by Simone di Martino a 
kneeling angel bends toward the Madonna with arguing 
hands and an olive branch, but she withdraws into herself, 
full, as it were, of the presentiment of that life which 
she explained to Saint Bridget in a vision ; a life 
equally divided between joy and sorrow. The gawky 
gesture is sufficient to render the feeling, and it is a lesson 
to us all who follow so closely our own admiration of the 
technical beauties of art. We realize that in some cases 
the intention is everything, and that to the poor and the 
humble is given what the stronger cannot attain to. 

In a fresco in Florence, whose author I do not know, 
the angel kneels outside the little imaginary building. 

Memmi passes a kneeling angel through columns 
(evidently a trick of artists) and he smiles to himself 
with pleasure at his message. On the other side, also, 
within pillars and amid signs of household life the Virgin 
sits, but with bended knee. Meanwhile the actual 
Holy Ghost in the form of a dove comes lighting upon 
her right hand, and illuminates her bosom. In contrast 
to the spiritual significance, in a far corner behind the 
stairs a cat looks up at the possible joys of food placed 




THE ANNUNCIATION. (Donatello) 



THE ANNUNCIATION 117 

in a niche above her — a cat so badly drawn that it 
might be a devil or a wicked creature. 

We ought to add a Spinelli, where the Madonna sits 
thoughtful within a little edifice, much ornamented in 
the Gothic way, which represents her room and her house. 
Her hands are crossed ; she is by herself, all the more so 
that the angel is far outside and comes floating in a cloud 
through flowering bushes, with fluttering wings, but 
almost no motion. The same master gives us the Ma- 
donna again seated in some compartment ; she has been 
reading and she listens to the story of the angel with 
attention, while he, very much intent, bends one knee, 
with crossed arms, and yet manages to lift two fingers 
in explanation. 

One of the greater men, Orcagna, gives us, with the 
severity of his mood, a Madonna not too young, who, 
seated, looks down on the kneeling angel with the gravity 
of the more important person. 

Piero della Francesca has a severe matronly lady 
within a columned receptacle, whose gesture means 
attention — it is not very interesting, but the angel's 
outline, with curved finger, is another variation worth 
noting. 

Donatello carries us into the full meaning of future 
art. Not even to-day can we go beyond his power of 
expression, his skilful acceptance of all the difficulties 
of his task. In Santa Croce, in a vision of reality except 
for the ornamental background and surrounding, he has 
given to the Virgin a certain high noble beauty ; she with- 
draws a little, almost out of the frame of the relief, so 
that she faces us, but turns her head to listen as if com- 
prehending the full meaning of the message. Gabriel, 



ii8 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

deeply moved, with half-closed eyes and a dreamy bend 
of face and neck and body, half kneels in homage. He 
scarcely makes any gesture at all ; his entire person tells 
the story and his lips barely whisper the message. That 
manner will be what Botticelli and others will keep to 
later, and so will Ghirlandajo. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE NATIVITY. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI 

In one of the dark galleries which surround the Basilica 
of Saint Sebastian on the Appian Way, the Child, facing 
us with two animal companions, the ox and the ass, is 
painted on a bit of wood — a work of the fourth century. 

We know little of the origin of this or that form of 
art, and we can never be absolutely sure. We may say 
that the evolution of the meaning becomes so entangled 
with the development of the technique that nothing 
appears individual, and yet any detail may be valuable, 
as indicating the spiritual training or influences of the 
artists who have left examples in the long trail of the 
world's history. 

The moment of our story begins with the Gospels 
of Saint Luke and Saint Matthew, from which come the 
first descriptions of what is called, technically, "The 
Nativity," — the birth of Christ, — the entrance into 
the world of the entire Christian meaning. In those 
Gospels mention is made of Jesus, born in Bethlehem of 
Judaea while Herod reigned, and of Magi who, having 
seen a star in the East, followed it to render homage. 

Saint Luke tells us what we usually see rendered : 
how Mary wrapped the child in swaddling clothes and 
laid him in a manger because the inn had no room for 
these good people driven to Bethlehem to be taxed by 
decree of Caesar Augustus. Shepherds were keeping 



I20 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

their flocks by night when an angel, wrapped in the glory 
of the Lord, came upon them announcing the good news, 
and with him a multitude of the heavenly host praising 
God, and the shepherds went to see what had come to 
pass. 

The Gospel of Saint Luke does not speak of the Magi, 
but the two other Gospels melted together in the minds 
of the faithful. At first they hesitated at rendering the 
facts, especially those which brought in the actual human 
being, as the helpless child, or, later in the story, the 
sufferer dying on the cross. Abstract ideas are natural 
to the beginning of all art, and also prophecy and his- 
torical allusions. The prophet had announced that 
"The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's 
crib : but Israel doth not know, my people doth not 
consider." Hence the images of the two beasts at the 
birth of a Redeemer. Saint Ambrose recognized in the 
ass the image of the Gentile, and Saint Gregory in the ox 
the Jew tied up by the harness of the law ; he saw also 
in the ass the soul that carried a useless body of idolatry. 

The more mystical the allusions of the Fathers of 
the Church were, the more the reality was impressed on 
the minds of the faithful, so that even to-day we refer 
to these images as if they were of events that we know. 
The pseudo-Matthew described the divine Child adored 
in the manger by the ox and the ass ; the pseudo-Matthew 
was condemned by Pope Gelasius, but the ox and the ass 
remained forever attached to the meaning of the Nativity. 

With the triumph of the Church through Constantine, 
we naturally have the tradition and practice of Rome, 
and the magnificence of marble and gold and mosaic 
to show the glory of the birth of Christ- and the estab- 



THE NATIVITY. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI 121 

lishment of a great empire beginning with that happy- 
day, then determined as being the 25th of December. 
The forms, the intellectual habits of him whom we call 
the pagan, must be used with a new belief ; no longer in 
a compromise, with mere allusion, but with distinct 
affirmation, the affirmation of government both human 
and divine. 

The pastorals of antique art came in to help the new 
artists. Already the early Christians had marked out 
in the darkness of the catacombs the figure of the Good 
Shepherd, so it was only necessary to take away the lamb 
from his shoulders and join him to the others at the 
stable where the Saviour lay in a manger. The first 
shepherds wear tunics, like those in the paintings of 
Greece and Rome. The Virgin brings back the type 
of the goddesses, perhaps a recollection of Juno, for the 
workman can only use the tools he has, and his habit 
of representing woman at a certain date must be that of 
the usual representation of women. 

As far back as the third century we find stories like 
this : "There was in Persia a temple of Juno, built by 
Cyrus, and adorned by statues of the gods in gold and 
silver. By the conversation of these images the priest 
of the temple learned that Juno had not died, but had 
taken the name of Mary and had espoused a workman, 
and from this marriage was born the Prince of Work, 
who with infinite wisdom built the throne of heaven. 
Cyrus listened to the story of the priest. The roof of 
the Temple was open, and a brilliant star passing through 
the sky stopped at a column to the East, announcing 
the birth of a child who should be both the Beginning 
and the End, Salvation and the Ender of Death. 



122 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

The wise men of Persia (the Magi) said to the king, 
" ' Go to Jerusalem and there you shall find the son of 
the All-Powerful God under human shape in the arms 
of a woman.' The star remained unmoved until the 
Magi left and then went with them." 

The Christian sculptors, like the poets, and the Fathers 
of the Church, were obliged to keep to the style of the 
pagans in explaining the new faith, and winged Victories, 
leaving the triumphal arches of Roman rule, spoke to 
the shepherds joyfully. 

The first Magi, in Mythriac costumes, brought cornu- 
copias and baskets of fruit instead of gold and myrrh, 
hence some writers thought they represented the closing 
of the older line and the beginning of a new dispensation. 

As a continuation of symbolism, the star guiding the 
Magi is often figured by a monogram written in a circle, 
indicating to the faithful that the star was Christ, a 
guide for men lost in the dark ; and the Magi or kings, 
according to the Fathers of the Church, called attention 
to the contrast of Gentiles illuminated through truth, with 
Jews persisting in the darkness of error. Mary herself 
represented the humanity of Christ. 

Long before Giotto (or perhaps merging into him) 
the little stable had a roof and something to hold it up, 
instead of the deep cavern rocks of Palestine. As we 
have said before, the apocryphal gospels, not recognized 
later, mingled their tales and their teachings with the 
records of the memories of the faithful. Certain women 
attended the Virgin, and Saint Joseph finds his place in 
the story. The mystical representations no longer satis- 
fied, and some splendour of divine illumination was sought 
for. 



THE NATIVITY. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI 123 

In some of the earliest images we see the representation 
of a curious fragment in the pseudo-gospels, the healing 
of the arm of one of the supposed attendants of the Virgin, 
named Salome. She holds out her arm, which is cured 
by the Virgin. In another old ivory the Virgin listens 
to the complaint of Salome while Saint Joseph meditates 
or sleeps ; this remained in the memory of the faithful, 
and far into the Renaissance Crivelli and Correggio 
continue the traditions so beautifully granted to the 
early painters. 

After a long space of time we slip into Italy; what 
occurs there in art seems sudden, and yet we know that 
it was all prepared by the ancient knowledge of the South, 
and Nicholas of Pisa gives us, in an Annunciation, a 
classical goddess-like figure of the Virgin who kneels 
grandly and respectfully, and also that of an angel draped 
in the antique way, while near them (on the pulpit of the 
Baptistery at Pisa) Our Lady lies majestic, as grand, as 
antique, and as splendid as any later classical pupil of 
the Renaissance can hope for. The sheep and the shep- 
herds gather around, while the Babe sleeps in a cradle 
shaped like an antique sarcophagus. 

At Siena the story is touched by divine grace or by 
the Sienese air (for Siena was dedicated to the Virgin), 
and every figure becomes a little tender, however beauti- 
ful the draperies and the solemnity of the composition. 
Elizabeth in the distance is quite modern, and the Virgin 
smiles at her like any young girl. 

The classical persists in Fra Guglielmo of Pistoia and 
John the Pisan (for sculpture keeps easily to the classical 
tradition from mere mechanism), and we find Orcagna 
giving us full curving draperies, which allow Joseph to 



124 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

sleep and the Madonna to dispose of the Babe (now 
full grown) in a long bed, guarded by ox and ass. Behind 
them is the wonderful suggestion of painting and of land- 
scape which belongs to the great sculptor : a shepherd 
stands, a vulgar creature, in what might be called moon- 
light, if one dared to say that of sculpture; an angel, 
derived from the antique — not by any copy, but from 
sentiment — argues with one hand and points with the 
other; the Virgin moves the draperies of the Child. 

The son of Pisano in Pistoia begins that beautiful 
motif for artists (the lifting of the covering of the Child), 
that will persist forever, and gives its name to Raphael's 
"Madonna of the Veil." 

With Giotto in the Chapel of the Arena at Padua, we 
plunge fully into the art of painting, and we see the 
Madonna stretched out as naturally as if we had only 
looked at her to-day. She lifts herself a little from her 
mattress to turn or help the little Child; above them 
the angels almost tumble over the roof; the Shepherds 
look up outside, and although nearly violating the laws 
of perspective, they seem far away ; even a great mis- 
take in perspective, or in anything else, may not disturb 
an impression of reality. 

The fascination of the camel began far back for the 
unaccustomed Western mind, to whom the beast even 
now is more symbolical than necessary as an instrument of 
travel or a carrier of burdens. Leonardo was happy in 
the possibilities of the camel, which is entangled in the 
following of the far-away worshippers, and in Giotto's 
"Adoration of the Magi" the ungainly beast snorts on 
the left hand of the familiar scene. Gravely and reason- 



THE NATIVITY. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI 127 

ably, as we might expect both from the picture and from 
the subject, the older king begins to kiss the feet of the 
swaddled Child, carefully held by the majestic Mother, 
who already seems accustomed to receive homage. The 
other two kings calmly wait to present their gifts. 
Joseph is absorbed in contemplation, and in the most 
practical way an angel has received a covered cup and 
holds it carefully. 

We may smile, but the good sense of the representation 
amounts to poetry, and there are admirable matters of 
arrangement of balance in the composition. Destruc- 
tion has attended certain parts ; destruction has also, in 
the " Nativity," partly damaged the beautiful extended 
form of Mary, who in her bed begins to move the little 
swaddled Christ held up to her, possibly by Elizabeth. 
Her bed is within a covered space represented by a roof 
with supports — a type of the courage with which Giotto 
has handled architectural fact. Below her, Joseph dreams 
in the manner which before and after has been recorded. 
The ox and the ass look up as the sheep lie down confidently 
alongside of the shepherds, who are turned away from us, 
listening to a wondrous choir of angels above them, who 
whirl in many directions, but who all sing the great song. 
If a movement of line can give the impression of sound, 
Giotto has done it, and his manner of folding the cloak 
high up around the neck of the shepherd who turns his 
back to us indicates the slight chill of the morning air. 

Again, the balance of the composition, and all those 
things that must belong to the better men are there and 
help us to see the other points. Italy will follow far and 
will carry out wonders, but never shall the place of Giotto 
be usurped. His "Adoration of the Magi" at Assisi has 



128 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

certain elements of grandeur which seem chosen for 
their majesty, and although real, as everything of the 
master must be, there is a something of especial style, of 
voluntary disposal, as if he had had ample time. Here 
the kings are reticent, and take proper places. The 
young one, draped after some antique fashion, waits 
his turn with the next of age. They are erect ; the older 
folds his hands ; the younger watches him with an ex- 
pression of waiting which would be extraordinary in 
any moment of realism in art. The Madonna sits 
under some preparation of architecture such as Giotto 
likes, brand new and elegant, upon a sort of throne or 
high seat, attended by two noble angels who seem almost 
like great ladies. The little Child plays with the head 
of the older Mage who is kissing his feet, and the Madonna 
waits, seated like a reminiscence of the antique, which 
may have come from Giotto's acquaintance with Rome 
and its traditions. Behind the Magi is a tumultuous 
and not very respectful set of attendants, and with them 
the camels thrusting their heads into the crowd. All the 
more noble appear the main actors of the scene. 

In another of the paintings in the same place, the 
Madonna again is majestic and classical. She has been 
stretched on the mattress and half rises to look at the 
little Babe all wrapped up, while the angels sing and 
fly in curving lines. Outside in the night air the shep- 
herds listen to them ; the trees show that winter is 
there ; the sheep come tumbling in. 

When we think of painting as a religious art, the 
Angelic One comes at once to our minds. So perfectly 
was it understood that he was a "religious painter," that 
for a long time ignorance of his development (and, indeed, 



THE NATIVITY. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI 131 

ignorance of the art of painting) prevented many admirers 
from understanding that the monk, apparently shut 
within his monastery, was also a leader in his art. (We 
realize, of course, that as a cleric he designs within the 
limits of necessities, within the limits of his calling.) 

His Adoration of the Magi in San Marco is still 
within the mediseval feeling. The orderliness of arrange- 
ment, as well as a certain indifference to the setting, 
reminds us of Giotto ; nothing tells beholders where the 
event is happening, but it is an event, though not an 
unexpected one. All the figures move steadily to the 
persons they have come to see — the Child and his 
Mother; the modest Mother and the Child who blesses 
them. The older king stretches out at full length on the 
grassy ground, and (a touch of realism worthy of Giotto) 
one feels the stiffness of his arms ; he will not rise easily. 
His companions wait in the proper way of expectation and 
according to their age. All their attendants come up 
slowly ; each has some special present ; one man carries 
a terrestrial globe. 

We recognize the probable visits of far-away people 
to Florence at the time of the good monk, by the long 
pigtail, the great sabre, and other varieties of unusual 
fact, including, of course, the necessary negro, but the 
younger king is of our own race. However interesting 
the attendants may be, the artist in Fra Angelico has 
not omitted to establish the central lines of his compo- 
sition upon the arch of the tabernacle below, for (as we 
have just said) with all his piety and spiritual meaning, 
the Angelic monk was a painter also. The wise friar 
may have been learned or not, but he knew the traditions, 
and how the Magi became kings, for, as he has made them 



132 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

out, they are far from the shortcoated holders of religious 
secrets whom we see in the earliest representations. Their 
ancient names, Pudizar and Melchias, belong to that 
period, but already in the tenth century they wear 
crowns. The distinction of two standing and one kneel- 
ing, as in our picture, comes late, and as we now remember 
the story the Magi are called Caspar, Melchior, and 
Balthasar. 

However beautiful pictures may be, the poetry of the 
hymns carries further than any realistic rendering. How 
can painting give the idea of the words of Claudian : 

"Oh, man, the myrrh ; Oh, king, the gold, 
Oh, God, accept the incense." 

In the old mosaics of Ravenna we are told that Caspar 
brought gold clad in a hyacinth dress, Balthasar brought 
incense in a yellow dress, and Melchior brought myrrh 
in a dress of many colors, and a long beard soon became 
inseparable from one of the kings. 

Gozzoli fills the Riccardi Chapel in Florence with 
celestial creatures who sing and talk and preach and 
point, gather fruit and flowers, play with pet birds, and 
invade the landscape of Bethlehem with joy. Saint 
Joseph is no longer wrapped up in concentrated thought, 
but kneels and adores. The Child is surrounded by a 
glory of light. This representation of light will continue 
until we see it culminate in Correggio's "Night," and 
the supernatural light of Rembrandt, in itself a mystical 
creation as well as an imitation of reality. 

In the picture by Fra Angelico in the Academy of 
Florence the shepherds come stepping carefully, and the 
angels are spaced as if around the Blessed Sacrament. 




DETAIL FROM THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI. (Gozzoli) 



THE NATIVITY. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI 135 

We can do without the ass and the ox and the mattress 
and the place itself. The shepherds are there to explain 
the subject, but it is the religious meaning that is dis- 
played for us, separated from any dramatic entanglement. 
There speaks the perpetual faith of the Church, as a 
moment ago we saw the joy of the faithful in the many 
angels of Angelico's pupil, Gozzoli. 

In the beginning we may take the representations 
as just issuing from the obscurity of the catacombs, and 
in a doubtful position as to toleration or persecution. 
Whatever remains of the earliest moment is interesting 
to us as containing a reference to reality, and the costume 
of the Magi is poetic because it means innumerable 
relations to the mysteries of strange faiths. They wear 
short tunics and floating cloaks, narrow head coverings 
reminding one of Phrygian caps, and are still in connec- 
tion with the extreme antique, and with the hidden things 
of the East, but for us the later Roman clothing is more 
impressive and the meaning more evident. 

A few barbaric attempts pass very soon into our more 
modern and beautiful groupings. The Byzantine arti- 
ficiality gives to the Virgin the look of an empress ; the 
seat upon which she sits becomes almost a throne with 
steps. The Greek canon of painting^ gives us this rule; 
"A house; the seated Virgin holds the Christ, blessing; 
the Three Magi offer gifts in boxes of gold ; one, an old 
man with long beard and head covered, kneels, keeping 
his eyes turned toward the Christ, and with one hand he 
offers his gift, while with the other he takes hold of his 
crown. Second, very little beard ; third should have no 
beard and, moreover, should belong to the negro race. 

* Dedrion, "Guide to Painting." 



136 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

They look to each other, showing the Christ. On the 
right of the Virgin, Saint Joseph should stand in an act 
of adoration. Outside the grotto a youth holds three 
horses by the bridle. In the distance, on a mountain, 
the Magi on horseback are returning to their own country 
with the escort of an angel." 

The complication of the scene began in the oriental 
world and the West transformed the simple statement 
into a solemn reception, giving to the painting, as it 
were, the music and sound of the hymns of the Church 
for Epiphany. 

Pisano recalls the barbaric images in a beautiful way : 
Mary is again an empress ; the Magi are crowned and 
cloaked and booted and spurred ; the Child accepts the 
gifts ; an angel stands with the traditional staff. Except 
for that one mediccval detail, the bas-relief might belong 
to a Roman sarcophagus. 

Later, again, with John of Pisa at Siena, galloping horses 
and the camel and dog tell us the story of the Magi's voy- 
age, entangled with that of their further worship, which 
in Sant' Andrea at Pistoia becomes tender and intimate. 
The Virgin smiles sweetly down ; the angel, who later 
wakes Joseph, is delightfully impressive, and the classical 
folds of the drapery do not interfere with the mediaeval 
feeling. 

Giotto has kept to the ancient simplicity, and has 
represented the Virgin with a thoughtful gesture, showing 
the Child to one of the Magi. The Child, princely here, 
welcomes the gentle homage of the elder king, while 
the others wait their turn. 

Later in Florence the Blessed Monk will paint the 
scene on an artificial background of ornament, and we 




ANGELS — DETAIL FROM THE ADORATION OF THE 
MAGI. (GozzoLi) 



THE NATIVITY. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI 139 

shall see the Magi in the usual way, the elder prostrate, 
and the two younger with a modern fervency of adoration. 

When we leave the fourteenth century these austeri- 
ties pass into the representation of maternal love. In 
the painting of Gentile da Fabriano in Florence, the 
mediaeval character, the Florentine anxiety for accurate 
representation, and the beautiful sense of ornament and 
of assimilation with the story, give an enchanting ful- 
ness of detail. From country to country the Magi pass ; 
they go up mountains, they come down again ; they 
pass over the drawbridges of castles ; they are followed 
by their escort, sword in hand, and by hunters with tame 
leopards. The horses and the men become entangled 
together as they approach. All the more natural is 
the arrival of the large company upon a small scene. 
Thereupon all is graver; the older Mage kisses the feet 
of the Child, whose hand caresses the bald head ; the 
other kings are clothed with gold and scintillating jewels, 
and the younger one's furs are being taken off. 

As we come down the century the artist triumphs in 
every way ; Botticelli and Ghirlandajo spread out proud 
compositions and bring in the costumes of Italian courts ; 
symbolism disappears, and, as we noticed before, its 
ruin indicates the fall of the older world. In the fifteenth 
century all breaks up still more. The shepherds and the 
kings are no longer distinct ; the story of the stable 
is put aside and the angels do not stand, but fly ; 
Raphael touches the subject gently, and Correggio gives 
us a cloud of angels above the Madonna, who has bare 
feet, against the proper tradition. 

We have left religious history to pass into the great 
field of art, an art not oblivious of sentiment, but with 



I40 



THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 



itself at the basis of the representation ; we feel that the 
next day the painter will give himself with equal zeal 
to the story of Leda or some other enchantment of pagan 
tradition, or else to some merely human happening. 

If we touch the North, we shall be both late and 
early ; Albert Diirer, who comes down to Italy, returns to 
earn a living by woodcuts principally, and sometimes 
by engravings, which render the Gospel story accessible 
to a wide public. 

If we look at these prints after the Italian decorations, 
they seem just what they are, spaces of black and white, 
but to us moderns they have a curious connection 
with our traditions, and perhaps even in their very frank 
and sometimes narrow statements we may feel that 
something which distinguishes Diirer, and which appeals 
to us of the less joyous races of the North, — that is to 
say, the touch of melancholy. When he shows us the 
black sun which illumines his "Melancolia," we have 
something that even the glorious sadness of Michael or of 
Leonardo has not for us. Perhaps we are too much 
influenced by Latin memories, and try to discern, in 
Diirer's frankly made statements, a more infinite 
revelation than his few fragments have to give us. 

For he is certainly prosaic at times, as in the very 
beautiful print of the "Adoration of the Magi." He has 
little angels floating above, and there is a stile, and there 
are steps, broken with infinite care. There is a splendid 
Tartar in the distance, a record from nature, and the 
negro king is really African. All of this tends to prove 
that the design in itself is imaginative. The older Mage 
kneels stiffly but correctly; he is a great personage in 
his far country ; and the aext one, holding a vase with 



THE NATIVITY. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI 143 

three openings, remonstrates with his dusky companion, 
less high in position, — an image that takes us away 
from the mastery of the subject. Joseph is, however, 
anxious, and we feel a story in him and his face. He 
is holding a present in his hand, and the Mother is 
tenderly anxious about the proper behaviour of her 
Child -T- and yet we have spelled prose while we looked 
for poetry. 

He gives us the shepherds in another woodcut. 
The first ones come in at the door, and commonplace, 
or, rather, vulgar as some of them are, they come with 
some important intention, and their astonishment is 
justified by the little fluttering group of angels gathered 
like birds around the Babe. 

We are too severe, of course, because we cannot put 
the necessary business work of the great man in its 
proper place. We shall understand his meaning better 
when we look at the drawing in the Albertina. The pen 
and ink preserves to us the actual line of the master and 
that slight hesitation which belongs to handwork. The 
treatment of the subject is the same. The negro hesitates 
and is a real negro, with tremulous lips and retreating 
chin; he is booted and spurred, his barbaric ornaments 
jingle around his neck. He also is instructed by the 
middle-aged man who grasps him by the arm, and the 
older of the Magi kneels in an impassioned way. The 
Mother is draped as an older woman, beautifully and 
majestically, while Joseph looks on kindly. 

We are now touching the real man fresh from his idea. 
Even the painting in the Florence gallery is not so great. 
It is beautiful ; and the Child Christ sweetly accepts the 
offering of the older man. The negro is more princely, 



144 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

a man of middle age ; he is a splendid creature, but some- 
thing is missing, and we feel that it is important. 

Rembrandt, the last great exponent of modern art, 
is also the last successor of the mediaeval feeling. Some 
tradition, perhaps, may be there, some knowledge of East- 
ern countries remain, but as I said at the beginning of 
our study, it is interest in the synagogue which seems to 
have almost created Rembrandt. His New Testament 
is built out of the Old one, and is thus properly historical, 
and also ties together the past with the present and 
perhaps the future. 

His "Adoration of the Magi " is one of the great pic- 
tures, but however wonderful as art, what is most im- 
portant in it is its creation. Again we see what so rarely 
occurs, what shall not appear again until Delacroix comes 
in the nineteenth century — the representation of an 
actual vision. To-day we have the last expression of 
photography, which takes us at once into the momentary 
and accidental statement. In our painting the kings, or 
Magi, have come ; the older one (for Rembrandt keeps 
to that necessary tradition) bends upon the stone steps 
outside of the thatched building which serves as a sym- 
bol of the stable, and which is lost in the Rembrandt 
mystery. Within it Joseph watches, perhaps, or dreams ; 
we merely see that he is there. The Mother, draped in 
some Eastern manner, with a flutter of light around her 
head, uncovers the Child to the veneration of the old 
king. The Babe, in Rembrandt's way, is just a little 
newborn child all wrapped in swaddling clothes. The 
head of the old king almost touches the knee of the 
Mother — perhaps indeed it may. He has taken off his 
crown; its pressure is almost seen upon the forehead. 




THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI. (Rembrandt) 



THE NATIVITY. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI 147 

where, indeed, the shght frown of veneration can be made 
out. In no painting, in no image, has that special look 
of worship been so completely understood and rendered ; 
even the holy Angelic One is more abstract. 

Behind the older king are two attendants, also not 
young. They, too, are filled with respectful belief in 
what they hardly see. They do not even look, but, as 
in the reality which we can see in the churches of to-day, 
they are drawn within themselves, within the contem- 
plation of their own feelings. Behind the group another 
one of the kings, still crowned, stands. His left hand 
pushes back a younger attendant as he disposes carefully 
the vase which he intends to offer. Further back two 
strange figures step into the scene ; one a bearded man 
with mitre and long cloak, and near him the strange 
swollen face of an attendant. Behind them again other 
figures, unaccounted-for occupants of space in the 
shadows which clothe them. 

If ever there was a vision of mystery, of something 
unexplainable, whether religious as we mean it or not, 
we have it here. 

The painting of the Magi is different, and of greater 
meaning than that of the shepherds, which is as it should 
be, for the meaning of the Magi is not clear. They are not 
made much of in the Gospel story, but the mere reference 
to them brings out a certain character of unusualness 
sufficient to make us understand the anxiety of Herod 
concerning these strange visitors. On the contrary, 
our delight in the representation of the shepherds is a 
feeling of pleasure over the actual realistic and truthful 
fact, as if it had occurred yesterday before our eyes. 
Of course there is also a wonderful arrangement of light 



148 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

and shade, and all that art which renders Rembrandt 
glorious in our eyes, although he was condemned and 
belittled, even within the memory of this last century. 

The story is treated with some novelty : Joseph, as it 
were, almost explains it to the kneeling shepherds. His 
smile of pleasure at their coming is a curious study of 
human nature. He holds in his hand a light to show the 
little sleeping Babe, swaddled as usual. The Mother's 
arm stretches out toward him to fend off his arm and to 
guard from the danger of the light. The Madonna is 
ugly and older than necessary, but her hands uncover the 
Babe with a care belonging perhaps to an older woman. 
One might almost imagine that she is Elizabeth and not 
Mary, — but that is merely a bit of curious heaviness. 
The men appearing on the scene are no longer nec- 
essarily Jews ; they are probably sufficiently Dutch. 
There, too, one must not press too far; those further 
back are strange enough for any Eastern story ; the one 
who is carrying the lantern reminds us that Rembrandt 
never lost his curiosity about the East. Within the 
prosaic mystery, however strange, we recognize the forms 
of animals, and on some of the timbers of the strange 
building above is heavy drapery, probably carpets ; 
on a cross-beam a bird of the night — certainly too 
strange for any ordinary barnyard fowl — grimaces 
weirdly. 

Before Rembrandt, especially in Italy, or in the work 
of those who studied there, we still have the monuments 
of paganism represented ; the fragments of the temples 
were there for everyone to use, and they appear in un- 
finished sketches of Leonardo, and in the carefully dis- 
posed stones and steps of Diirer. 



THE NATIVITY. THE ADORATION OF THE MAGI 149 

However beautiful the many paintings of distinguished 
"religious painters" like Perugino may be, however 
perfect, however artistic in their promise of the form 
which Raphael shall bring to a triumphant close, we miss 
the feeling of anxiety to explain the Adoration, and the 
artist triumphs too much. To be sure^ the suggestion of 
his day that Perugino was not a believer comes in some- 
what as an explanation of his shortcomings, and he has in 
that case a right to interior reticence or scepticism as to 
accomplishing perfectly what he cannot quite feel. 

In the North of Italy the Adorations and Nativities 
came to be elaborately composed upon lines which will 
remain forever; skill and distinction accompanied many 
of the smaller artists, and then appeared a painter of grace 
and sweetness who blended together the echoes of the 
songs of the Church and of the choirs of angels, who had 
a vision of the prophets, and brought human trust, 
penetrated by human devotion, to the Christian ideal. 
At first Correggio gives us a Nativity where the Madonna 
covers her right shoulder with a mantle as if to indicate 
the winter cold, and the moon, coming through antique 
rooms, sends down her silver beams. Even the trees 
below in the wind look as if the chill of Christmas night 
touched them too. Christmas is for us cold ; while far 
off in the East, and far South in the isles of the ocean, 
Christmas is warm, sweet, full of fragrance and joy, and 
the shepherds of those countries need no more coverings 
than did a pagan faun. 

In his famous "Night" the genius of Correggio 
finds its most complete development. The light which 
is born from the Child spreads all about and lightens 
the face of the sweet Mother, is reflected on the shepherds, 



ISO THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

and on the angels that float in glory. This painting, 
now in Dresden, is the synthesis of the representations 
of the Nativity. As Leonardo in the " Last Supper," 
or Titian in the " Presentation " or the " Assumption," 
so Correggio makes the highest mark for the Nativity 
with the "Night" and ends a long-beaten path of art in 
a manner so Italian, so indicative of both the faith 
and the affections of the people, that we realize what a 
national art can be. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE PRESENTATION OF CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE. THE 
FLIGHT INTO EGYPT. THE REPOSE IN EGYPT 

"And, behold, there was a man in Jerusalem, whose 
name was Simeon ; and the same man was just and de- 
vout, waiting for the consolation of Israel : and the Holy 
Ghost was upon him. And it was revealed unto him by 
the Holy Ghost that he should not see death, before he 
had seen the Lord Christ. And he came by the Spirit into 
the temple." At that time the Virgin and Joseph were 
bringing the Child to Jerusalem to consecrate Him to the 
Lord according to the law of Moses, which prescribes the 
offering of a pair of turtle doves or pigeons. 

Simeon took up the child and blessed God and said : 
"Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace." 
And Joseph and His Mother marvelled, and Simeon blessed 
them and said unto Mary: "This child is set for the fall 
and rising again of many in Israel, and for a sign which 
shall be spoken against ; yea, and a sword shall pierce 
through thine own soul also." 

Meanwhile an ancient prophetess serving God in 
the temple, and present at the ceremony, blessed the Lord 
and spake of Him " to all them that looked for redemp- 
tion in Jerusalem." 

In some early work, as in stories taken from the apocry- 
phal gospels, angels accompany the Virgin. In ancient 
forms of sculpture Simeon received the Babe with veiled 
151 



52 



THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 



hands, but later mediseval art dropped certain ecclesiasti- 
cal features ; the veil is omitted, a mere mantle being 
sufficient for the respectful reception of the Child. The 
first simplicity of rendering the story with four figures 
changes to an accompaniment of angels and prophets ; 
Simeon in the character and costume inherited from Rome 
takes the Child ; behind him Anna, the prophetess, is 
often studied from nature, and would be even to-day a 
realistic treatment of passionate excitement. A number 
of assistants are there, whoever they may be. 

At length Giotto at Padua brings in nature. Near 
the altar (upon which burns no fire as in Orcagna's 
sculpture) Simeon, with long beard and hair falling in 
curls upon his shoulders, holds up the Child, gazing upon 
Him intently. The Babe — a real baby, more or less 
struggling — stretches a hand toward His Mother. Mary 
answers the Child with eager hands ready to comfort 
and receive Him. While she reaches out her hands in 
anxiety to hold the Babe again, Anna, quite wrapped up 
in her mantle, holds the roll of prophecy and, bending 
her head, salutes the Christ. Above them a floating 
angel makes some sign. 

At Assisi Giotto again repeats the story in another 
variation of sentiment. The Babe merely looks at the 
Mother with a smile of reassurance as she holds out her 
hands to bring Him back, as it were. Anna addresses 
the relatives, all listening attentively in different ways. 
One of the attendants of the Virgin near her kneels and 
stretches out arms for the cheering and helping of the 
Babe, while Simeon looks up to heaven in thanks. 

Giotto will carry us through until the end of the fif- 
teenth century, when Francia and ■ Carpaccio will tell 




THE PRESENTATION OF CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE. (Giotto) 



PRESENTATION OF CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE 155 

the story, and also with religious sentiment, but the scene 
has become a sort of religious ceremony and not the record 
of an event prepared by prophecy ; hence, also, Anna 
is dropped from importance. 

Luini places his Presentation within an antique 
temple, and the personages move freely and as if by acci- 
dent, with reality and with the sweetness of Luini's 
character. Anna is an ancient crone ; Simeon is ab- 
sorbed in the Babe, who looks about for His Mother; 
the bishop's mitre of Simeon is carried by an Italian page ; 
the turtles are brought in by some girls ; and Joseph, a 
handsome, aristocratic personage, explains the story to 
the women of the family, one of whom holds her mass- 
book. 

We have entered again into the kindly acceptance of 
stories that are beautiful, and there is no longer any 
necessity for insisting on any tremendous meaning ; those 
methods are left to persons whose business it is to teach ; 
painting is no longer a method of instruction, scarcely 
even of the lifting-up of the beholder. We must recognize 
that the Christian creed and all the teachings of the 
Church were now fully accepted, and also that the greater 
part of Europe was settling into shape, which accounts 
for the detachment of artists — they had other things to 
do. 

The Legend of the Gospel of Infancy gives the story 
of the Flight into Egypt and its romantic details. As 
the Child passed, the idols of Egypt fell, music filled the 
air, fountains gushed beneath the sycamore trees, bad men 
and robbers fled, and all Earth smiled. Eastern fancy 
spoke in additional parables, bringing up changes of 



156 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

personality and marvels ; the winds obeying the Child's 
will, dragons, lions, leopards, and wolves adoring Him. 
On the third day of their journey, the Virgin, suffering 
with thirst and heat, said to Joseph, "Let us rest under 
this tree in the shade." Joseph helped her from her saddle. 
As she looked up at the fruit above her she said, "I 
should like one of those dates " ; to which Joseph ob- 
jecting, the Child Jesus said to the palm tree, from the 
arms of the Virgin which held Him, "O tree, bend thy 
boughs and feed us with thy fruit," and the tree bowed 
its very top at the feet of Mary. 

With time the early embellishments became fixed. 
The robber pardoned by the Holy One is the good thief 
on the cross. Peruzzi has painted at Sant' Onofrio in 
Rome the legends of the Flight, and somewhere the fall 
of the idols is recorded, which in a legendary gospel is 
said to have happened on the edge of Hermopolis. 

In an ancient ivory at Bologna the Virgin rides trium- 
phantly on the caparisoned ass. Joseph follows and 
guides, staff in hand, and the city, perhaps Hermopolis, 
personified in the ancient way, with hands covered as 
a mark of respect, bends forward to welcome the 
travellers. 

At length Giotto gives us the elements of the past 
with the feeling of reality. The Virgin passes through the 
landscape, not ignorant of the future. One feels her 
silence ; she meditates, as if knowing her own fate. On 
one of his paintings, in A sisi, the bending palm tree 
salutes the Virgin instead of keeping, as at Padua, its 
steady uprightness. Angels, in both pictures, flying above, 
indicate the way, or rush to the City in the Hills to open 
its gate. Joseph shows the fatigue of carrying necessary 



PRESENTATION OF CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE 159 

food. The attendant girls converse together, as be- 
longs to their age, and a charming youth leads the 
ass. He does not understand why Joseph is so tired 
and looks at him wonderingly. What we feel, without 
knowing its mechanism, is that this is a travelling, mov- 
ing party. They have come into the picture and they 
will leave it. This is especially true in the Paduan 
picture. 

The subject pleased Rembrandt and he has tried it. 
One etching, known as the "great Flight," gives us a 
wide landscape, across which we look, with a winding 
river far off and a tower and distant hills. The fugitives 
are ready to go down into the river. The beast stops 
at the brink. A woman is on its back ; on the other side 
a man, evidently young, holds it by the bridle and checks 
it. Tt is again travel. 

Another, which is unfinished, is at night perhaps. 
They ford a stream. Joseph feels his way, leading the 
ass, on which sits the Virgin, holding the Child to herself 
with one hand ; with the other balancing herself and 
keeping a hold on the travel kit. 

Not more natural, but more in keeping with symbolical 
and historic meaning, is a sculpture by Delia Querela, 
in the charming series at San Petronio in Bologna. It 
gives us the passing of the travellers, the carefully hurry- 
ing beast and rider, and the accompanying guardian 
Joseph pushing and watching, for the road is heavy, 
and dangers from men press also. The tired dog leads. 
The Mother sweetly bends over the Child, pressed to 
her and held by the long cloth that goes around His 
Mother's neck. It is beautiful. This less-known man 
precedes Michael Angelo, who worked in Bologna at 



i6o THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

first, as we may remember. Delia Querela worked hard 
and found poverty or straitened means the reward of 
his labour. We have the full record of it all. 

In the delightful sculptures at Orvieto a dragon at 
the forefoot of the ass bends down, perhaps reentering 
his cavern in fear, as the legend tells, or (as the legend also 
tells) he may be crouching in adoration. 

In a fantastic illustration by Lucas Cranach the Virgin 
sits under a tree. Above it play little angels, and a 
choir of them dance around Mary and the Child in an 
unbroken circle. Against the tree Joseph stands dream- 
ing. It is a gawky but well-meant effort, such as we 
might expect of the master. 

Seven years are given to the Repose in Egypt ; then 
Gabriel called them back. The Repose, as the Flight, 
became a subject for art. Indeed we might believe that 
the innumerable images of sculpture and painting wherein 
the Holy Family are represented by themselves may 
have been, not purposely but unconsciously, begun from 
the Repose of the story ; the image of their household 
life. 

This suggestion of a halt in weary travel appealed 
to occasional artists. Rembrandt was sure to take hold 
of it, as he had the Flight, so we have a night landscape, 
with heavy trees ; in the distance the towers of a town ; 
lights in window openings ; water in the foreground 
(the corner of some river) ; at its edge a wall of rock and 
cavern, and Joseph and Mary seated on the ground with 
the Babe. At a little distance from them a fire has been 
lit ; a figure kneels and stirs it ; behind him a group 
of cattle stands, and at a distance many others lie in 



PRESENTATION OF CHRIST IN THE TEMPLE 163 

the landscape. Here and there, some shepherd by his 
sheep or cattle is touched with light. Certainly rest 
has come. 

Much less natural, though in Rembrandt's "manner," 
is another picture in which we see the Mother with the 
Child in her lap, seated and extending a tired leg and foot ; 
near her Salome is stretched out, resting on a tired arm 
and hand. All this is in full light, seen through the opening 
of a cavern. Joseph with his back turned toward us, and 
in the dark, sits on the edge of a rock. They are all shut 
in, the feeding ass included, and safe, for near them is the 
wall of a tower. 

Before that Correggio had given us the moment of 
repose. The legend represents the Virgin, tired of course 
from travel, descending or coming off her saddle to sit 
in the shade of the palm tree, from which, as we know, 
the Child through a miracle obtained the fruit far above. 
Correggio remembers the legend and shows all together ; 
water runs under the tree which gives shade to the Mother 
and the Child, and angels floating above seem to bend 
the branches of the palm tree, in which Joseph gathers 
the dates. The Virgin sits now at rest and smiles at the 
charming Child who takes the fruit from the fatherly 
hand in His own right hand, with the other stretched 
out to the cup of water which his Mother is just lifting 
up. We see behind the trees, at a distance, a child 
with a vase, presumably full of water. And Correggio 
has given us again the Mother and Child in the "Zinga- 
rella," which is certainly meant for a fragment of the 
scene of the Repose, for the angels above stretch out for 
the branches of the palm, and the Babe sleeps in the shade 
under His Mother's head bent over Him. Flowers grow 



i64 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

about ; and a little white rabbit has come to see what 
looks so beautiful. 

Yet another "Riposo" by him in the Uffizi at Florence 
has the Virgin sitting against a great tree, gazing dreamily 
before her; the Child stands on her knee, stretching out 
his hand towards Joseph, who seems to be offering Him 
dates ; and a monk kneels on the other side, in wonder 
and adoration. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE DISPUTE IN THE TEMPLE. THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST 

Jesus is already seated In the Temple, and on either side 
is a row of noble figures of ancient doctors astounded by 
His wisdom. Our Lord's figure has the expression of the 
teacher, the back severe and angular. One hand is raised 
in argument, slowly. Thereupon the parents come in. 
Joseph stands like the average onlooker, astonished at 
what he hears, while the Mother stretches out her arms 
toward her Son, happy to have found Him again. 

Thus Giotto sees the Dispute. Earlier than Rem- 
brandt he gives us the look of the synagogue. One lis- 
tener draws back astonished, the other bends an attentive 
head, another seems to meditate over the words of the 
Boy as he passes his fingers through his long beard. 
Another has his hand up to his neck as if he does not quite 
agree with what he hears. 

The pictorial representations of the Dispute vary in 
the place and in the arrangement. The occasion for 
composition is a fine one, but rarely does the expression 
of a spiritual event appear in the pictures, whether they 
are successful or failures. The Northern man, Diirer, 
in his set of engravings, has built the synagogue around 
the distant figure of the Christ sitting at a desk, and the 
Mother and Joseph come in almost casually, in contra- 
diction to the care with which the Italians have always 
recognized the Madonna as an imporant personage of the 

i6s 



i66 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

story. Her pursuit of the Child is a story itself, and even 
in Giotto the rigid composition accepts the influence 
of the two arms stretched out — the only real action of 
the painting. As ever, Giotto is the man from whom 
everything flows. His pupils and assistants at Assisi 
give us the story divided by columns, and with a number 
of figures whose backs are turned toward us, a novelty not 
quite successful and yet impressive as beginning a new 
departure. 

The curious mind of Botticelli has placed among the 
listeners a clothed, monkish figure which is supposed to 
be the devil. Everywhere in that land of the Madonna, 
and wherever the veneration for her extends, the tender 
presence of the Virgin is seen. At times she is habited 
like a nun, at others in her usual draperies ; but she always 
appears with her one idea of finding the Child. There 
may be, but I do not remember it, some representation of 
the stern answer of the Boy to His Mother as to His 
employment in His Father's work. Luini shows us Mary 
passing through the crowd of doctors seeking her Son, 
and He who, according to the text of the Gospel, should 
have answered severely, almost smiles at His Mother, 
lifting His hands on high. As sentiment grows more and 
more in the painters, the persons present lose the char- 
acter of listeners to moral law. Giotto alone has kept 
in his first painting to what is the main statement before 
us, notwithstanding the tender speech of Mary ; — that 
this is the voice of God speaking the doctrine to which 
all must listen. 

Rembrandt's etching is too slight to be more than a 
reminiscence, though he has not missed the statement of 
the event being something important. 



THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST 167 

In early art the Baptism takes an important place. 
There are angels present, and in Eastern representations 
a suggestion of official assistants, as of deacons. At a 
fixed date (787), the Second General Council of Nicaea 
made the rule that Christ shall be in the centre, in 
Jordan, John to the left on the shore, the angels on the 
right, and over Christ, the glory of God. Even later than 
that the classical and beautiful use of a symbolical figure 
— the personified river — still occurs. In the thirteenth 
and fourteenth centuries we find representations of the 
water being poured on the Christ instead of His immer- 
sion ; in ancient works both rites are represented. 

With Giotto we have the double rite the attendant 
angels ready to clothe the Christ, John standing on the 
brink, according to the manner of the apostles, and a 
witness whose gaze seems one of mere curiosity. Christ 
Is naked, but In order to meet the question of our feelings 
the wash of the water is spread over Him up to His waist. 
There is no attempt to make the water look as If It were 
real ; It is merely a concession to Western and modern 
sentiment. Above, the blessing of God comes down ; 
light Is spread about ; perhaps there are angels. Of 
course the merits of a Giotto cannot be questioned, 
but the face of the Christ is not of importance ; however, 
the paintings were in such condition that they have 
of late been restored, so that our naturally severe judg- 
ment of any failing of the great master may not be in 
order. 

We should, perhaps, have taken up the sculptures of 
the subject first, though In general our work Is mainly 
among paintings. The sequence of thought, neverthe- 
less, and sometimes of doctrine, is to be followed, and 



i68 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

sculpture has often marked some change of thought, as 
it precedes painting usually in the development of art. 

An early representation of the Baptism has the same 
peculiar rendering of the water, showing it mounting to 
clothe the Christ in part. The sculpture is childish in 
certain ways; for example, John is quite an elderly per- 
son, bearded and strange. The Christ, also, is not young, 
and meets the movement of John with a look of astonish- 
ment. Angels, too, fluttering in the foreground (or 
rather, perhaps, kneeling) are full of anxiety; and from 
above the Dove dashes down. Much later, in 1370, a 
font of the Florentine baptistery is adorned on its six 
sides with reliefs telling the story of baptism. It shows 
an unaccustomed form of Florentine art, indicating per- 
haps Venetian influence. A curious and interesting point, 
which may help to prove this influence, is that in the first 
division the background is of a mountain upon which are 
indicated trees with heavy foliage ; a lion and another beast 
roam about, and there is also a horse on the ground ; the 
trees which crown the scene throw their foliage beyond the 
division and reappear on more than one side of the font. 
The figures vary much in character, and show some 
acquaintance with various Italian movements besides 
the Venetian. We are passing from the ancient forms, 
but there is an intention of doctrine which is interesting. 

The first scene represents John baptizing the people. 
The crowd kneel, after moving in a circle, partly in the 
water, which is indicated sufficiently. The Baptist 
wears the clothing peculiar to him. In the second 
scene, John baptizes the Christ. In the distance there 
is again a representation of landscape fitting into the 
division and helping to separate the figures from the 



THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST 169 

distance. A stag feeds on the leaves of the trees, and 
angels descend as from the rocks. Already a full pic- 
torial development is attempted from a specially tech- 
nical point of view. This is again to be insisted upon as 
a new departure, following the manner of more Northern 
work. One feels the water flowing far back, although 
it is merely indicated. The Christ accepts the baptism 
of John with folded arms and an air of quiet ; His feet 
only are in the water, and He is now partially draped. 
The Baptist kneels, the believers stand at a distance ; 
the angels in the usual way kneel or stand ready to clothe 
the Redeemer. 

The third scene has inscribed upon it "Christ Baptizes 
John." Again in the distance things happen which do 
not appear to have any bearing on the subject, but the 
complication of such matters is great, and it may be that 
the animals of the background have some relation to a 
hidden meaning, or perhaps to some text, although I have 
not been able to discover it. Under the trees a lion 
devours a stag, with rather successful realism. Two 
children gaze at the scene, evidently frightened. One 
of them stretches out his hands as if to climb into a 
tree. Two angels come on in full flight ; various believers 
fold their hands in prayer, among them several women, 
who follow with devotion the baptism of John. One of 
them holds Jesus' dry clothingover her arms. The Baptist 
kneels, half clothed, upon a little indication of water, and 
the Christ pours water upon him from some cup or vase. 

In the fourth scene Christ baptizes the apostles. 
Above, two angels drop in a half-circle from the distant 
mountain with the trees. One of the apostles kneels 
in the conventional water; the expression of devout 



I70 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

acceptance of the sacrament is most beautifully given. 
Another takes off his principal coat or mantle, and two 
more in the distance do the same, drawing their sleeves 
over their hands. They look toward the angels, and 
perhaps address them, and the whole scene is remarkable 
as realism. 

The drapery of the Christ, which is all that remains 
of His figure, is battered. Perhaps French invaders, per- 
haps mere unbelievers, perhaps German or Swiss troopers 
have done this as other things ; as in France the Christs 
of the cathedrals, and thousands and thousands of 
beautiful windows, have been broken in the enthusiasm of 
new ideas ; a sight more cruel even than the English 
destruction. Reformation in various forms has fre- 
quently wiped out what is most annoying to the re- 
formers. So in far China the images of the Buddha have 
been broken by revolted Mohammedans in their mo- 
mentary passage of barbaric triumph. That we are 
milder to-day, and that we no longer break church 
windows, is not a proof that the same unreason may not 
re-occur. 

Two other divisions, by different hands, represent 
in a less successful way Saint Sylvester baptizing Con- 
stantine, and a priest baptizing children in the usual 
manner of the Church ; both with realism having some 
interesting points of similarity to what we see anywhere 
to-day. There has been discussion as to the author 
of this font, notwithstanding the fact that Vasari (who 
should have known, but who is more or less inaccurate) 
gives the work to John the Pisan. This is what Vasari 
says: "He had worked at Orvieto with his assistants, 
certain Germans." (This statement about Germans may 



THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST 171 

account for some peculiarities of style in the Italian art 
which they handled.) "John repaired to Florence after 
leaving Orvieto, partly to inspect Arnolfo's building, 
but also to visit Giotto, of whom he had heard great 
things related. He had scarcely arrived in Florence 
before he was appointed by the attendants of the 
fabric to execute the Madonna which stands over that 
door of the church which leads into the Canonical Pal- 
ace." . . . "He afterwards erected a small baptismal 
font of Saint John, adorning it with passages from the 
life of that saint in half-relief." Our beloved Vasari is of 
course wrong here, for the date, as we know, is 1370, 
nearly half a century later than the death of John the 
Pisan. 

Later, at Siena, Ghiberti the Florentine carries out 
for another baptismal font a decoration grander perhaps 
than that of his predecessors, but more artificial. An 
interesting novelty is the indication of a sky with clouds, 
cirrus clouds which break the apparently flat distance, 
otherwise quite empty. Here begins the search of the 
artist (by which we know him) for picturesque effects. 
Two women make some conventionally elegant gesture, 
while John, in a rather theatrical manner (compelled per- 
haps by the necessities of the composition) stretches out 
an arm violently. [I have spoken of the two "women" 
who hold some of the clothes of Christ, but they may be 
some form of angels.] The adoring angels above the 
Christ fly in the form of an arch, with hair floating in 
the wind, and with wings mingling with the clouds, as 
if sunrise would soon light the scene. Above the beautiful 
creatures, God the Father in a cloud, far away in space 
with seraphim, blesses the scene. Christ, whose drapery 



172 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

covers His shoulders in part, makes a gesture, graceful 
but uncertain, which again is not so far from the character 
of our artist. 

In the next panel we see Herod sitting like a Greek 
ruler, helmeted and cuirassed, balancing on his knee a 
little globe representing empire, and ordering, not un- 
gently, the arrest of the Baptist. The prophet raises 
his right hand in resentment or appeal as the soldiers 
lay hold on him. On the other side of the throne sits 
the unlawful wife of the Tetrarch, her hand upon her 
breast, quietly waiting for revenge. All of which is pleas- 
ing but somewhat irresolute, and although it is beautiful 
and picturesque, we recognize a tendency to diminish 
the force of the statement, which for us who follow the 
story is a need not to be replaced by the mere beauties 
of art. But the Florentine minds are already turning 
towards the new wonders, and Ghiberti is one of their 
great names deservedly ; one of the glories of his city and 
of Italy and of the whole world. The search-light of our 
inquiry does not diminish him, for he did what he had to 
do ; as a developer of the art of sculpture and a creator 
of noble pleasure he deserves his Florentine place. 

Fra Angelico, at Saint Marco in Florence, gives us the 
Saviour as a tall, slight, graceful figure who stands looking 
upward in thought, with bare feet hardly wet by the sup- 
posed water. The Baptist steps violently forward to 
pour the water upon His head ; His Mother kneels close 
by, in what I believe to be the only similar representation. 
Near, or behind her again, stands Saint Dominic, clothed 
according to his order, representing the meaning of the 
place and the patron of the painter, or perhaps even of 
the givers of the painting. Two little angels kneel with the 



THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST 173 

Lord's clothing, disturbing somewhat the solemnity of the 
story. Far above, in circles of cloud, the symbolic Dove 
appears, but the good painter (not so much a painter in 
this case as a believer) has not succeeded in separating 
his landscape from his figures. 

In the Sistine Chapel Perugino represents the Bap- 
tism. In the centre of the long painting, with a little 
dove fluttering overhead, the Saviour and Saint John 
the Baptist stand in the Jordan. Saint John places his 
right foot on a stone in the water. He holds in his left 
hand the long cross, and with his right pours water from 
a gourd upon the head of the Christ, who prays with 
joined hands. Near them, at a sufficient distance on the 
shore, three kneeling angels carry the clothing. In the 
foreground, a mass of people, — all portraits of personages 
known to the painter. Further back, a number of figures 
coming to receive baptism, half clothed, or, rather, half 
naked. One of them has come quite close, and, seated, 
takes off his clothing. Above, in an artificial frame made 
of cherubim, God the Father holds a globe and gives a 
blessing. 

The Spanish mark distinguishes the work of the Span- 
iards to a less extent than we might expect, considering 
its very strong character, and that it stretches from the 
time when Semites touched their shores on the way to 
far-away mines of tin and the strange islands of the 
North, up to the date of the Spanish painters coming 
to Paris, or London, or New York, when it gives again 
the same impression. The forms of their art, especially 
that of painting, have been derived from other nations, 
but quite innocently, which gives a type of expression 
that we recognize as honest. 



174 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

A typical Spaniard is the Carthusian monk who painted 
in the Cartuja, or Chartreuse. His name is Sanchez 
Cotan and he may be considered to have a certain devo- 
tional feeling. Realism is carried far into the rather 
naive representation of the edge of the shore and distant 
trees, and bits of architecture. The Baptist has appar- 
ently just clothed himself again, and makes a gentle 
gesture of pouring water from a cup or shell. The Christ 
bends, accepting the sacrament with the devotion of a 
neophyte ; His head is Spanish, with long black curls. 
An angel or female figure stands ready, in a movement 
which is well known to us, to drop upon the Christ His 
garment of one piece. Above these two beautiful figures 
flutter little angelic forms, almost lost in the clouds, 
and the symbolic Dove is seen in part at the top of the 
painting. It is a case of the value of a strong feeling, 
worth more than mere art, as we have learned to recog- 
nize in our passage through history. As an illustration 
of the other side of Spanish character we may mention 
a realistic head of John the Baptist by the great artist 
Cano, a terrible representation, with gasping mouth and 
heavy frown and hair wet in the agony of death. 

Murillo has painted the Baptism in the Cathedral of 
Seville. We recognize the special grace of the Master, 
almost too much perhaps, in the kneeling form of Christ, 
who leaves the water and kneels on the shore. He is 
naked but for a bit of clothing, and His long hair, with a 
Spanish wave, drops down. He is absorbed in the recep- 
tion of the sacrament, and in that way the painter has 
carried out the feeling of his story. John baptizes with 
due reverence. He holds what sometimes annoys us 
of to-day as improbable, and what is merely symbolic — 



THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST lyS 

the cruciform staff with the floating ribbon, upon which 
is usually inscribed the text : "Bring forth fruits worthy 
of repentance." Above, in the sky, two child-angels, with 
little wings, such as Murillo loved, carry the Redeemer's 
cloak, a great deal too heavy for them. They are respect- 
ful, however, and recognize the unknown meaning of 
what they see. Above, a real Dove — ■ a paloma — ■ 
makes a centre for the upper part of the curved painting. 
We are far from the severity of the past, and nearly on 
the verge of the next century's latitude. Notwith- 
standing, in his painting of "John the Baptist in the 
Desert," one single figure against an uncertain distance, 
Murillo has expressed what he might well understand as 
a Spaniard, a frequenter of the desert or lonely places, 
and the Baptist looks up expectantly, while an innocent 
symbolic lamb gazes at him with curiosity. He also 
holds the cross and the ribbon. Another Spaniard of the 
name of Navarrete has given the Baptism with a singu- 
larly realistic and imposing beauty. The Christ, almost 
of feminine gentleness of face, but still noble, merely 
bends the head enough to receive the water poured 
upon Him from the two hands of the Baptist. Near 
them three women stand on the shore, for the river is 
hardly wide enough to make any difference. They are 
angels, perhaps, and hold the usual clothing. Above 
them, far up, more angels ; still further, the Father rep- 
resented in drapery, and below in the middle of the pic- 
ture, the Dove in clouds and light. 

We are approaching more and more the verge of some- 
thing not sufficiently respectful, and must look at the 
curious Baptism of El Greco as the result of a somewhat 
unbalanced mind, replacing sentiment by extravagance. 



176 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

And yet one feels unwilling to judge the interesting 
master too severely (forced as he probably was to 
over-production) for often we do not recognize the 
business side of much that we think of as done in a spirit 
of noble competition. For us ultra-moderns exhibitions 
of paintings, such as salons and academy shows, seem to 
have existed forever. We forget that the famous "reli- 
gious" pictures were usually done for business, just as 
much as the portraits that were produced in the gradual 
evolution of painting. 

It is difficult to describe El Greco's Baptism. It 
represents the clothing of Christ on His coming out of the 
water. He is almost naked, and has just drawn up His 
foot on the rather steep shore. Strange guardian 
angels throw drapery over Him, while others take up the 
edges and apparently assist. One, however, lifts an arm 
in recognition of the marvellous sight above, where the 
Father appears in glory. 

We must not forget a singular drawing by Rembrandt 
— a most realistic representation of the Baptism, if 
indeed we can call these slight scratches by that name ; 
in the loose sketches of great men the meaning is as great, 
very often, as that of the most important finish, and here 
we see the vision of the actual scene. Christ has unclothed 
himself enough to enter into the water, which takes Him 
up to more than mid-leg. The Baptist also is plunging 
in, having lifted his clothes also so as not to get them wet. 
It is an astounding piece of reality seen by the visionary 
eye of the great man. What it might have been, carried 
out, we can only guess ; we know that Rembrandt could 
always do what he wished. 

The Frenchman Poussin has given us the Christ on 




THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST. (El Greco) 



THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST 179 

shore, a beautiful, youthful figure, almost feminine, very 
much draped, bending, as it were, to Himself, and the 
Baptist coming to Him from behind carrying water in 
his two hands, to pour upon the head bowed low in 
humility. It is a very beautiful, almost pastoral, rep- 
resentation, and, like all the works of the Frenchman, 
respectful, and done in remembrance of the teaching 
received in his Italian life. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE PREACHING OF JOHN THE BAPTIST. THE DEATH OF 
JOHN. THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST 

The Baptist's life has naturally been a subject for 
art, whether religious or for art's sake. The Gospel of 
Saint Luke begins with the story of his birth, of the appa- 
rition of the angel to Zacharias and Elizabeth, and the 
visit of the Virgin to Elizabeth. Saint Matthew tells 
us of Saint John in the wilderness and his exhortation 
to the people. The miraculous escape of Elizabeth and 
her son from^the massacre at Bethlehem is recorded by 
tradition ; also that he went to the wilderness while yet 
a child, died at Machaerus, east of the Dead Sea, and was 
buried at Sebasto in Samaria. His severed head was 
said to have been brought to Europe in the fifth century. 

Saint John the Baptist is often pictured in child- 
hood or youth, and his appearance in the desert is rep- 
resented in various and very different ways. Sometimes 
he is a tall figure, sunburned and haggard, his hair 
and beard dishevelled, and scantily covered with a gar- 
ment of camel's hair, his legs and chest and arms bare ; 
at others he is a youth, so near mere beauty that it is 
doubtful whether one of Leonardo's studies represents 
Bacchus or Saint John, and we see him pointing up in 
many lovely pictures, merely because the painter did not 
let such a chance escape ; the painting by Leonardo in 



THE PREACHING OF JOHN THE BAPTIST 183 

the Louvre, where he holds the cross and points upward, 
is an instance of this. 

Memling has given him with proper severity, and 
Van Eyck in his great altarpiece has shown him wearing 
over his arm a garment bordered with gold and jewels, 
and with his hair and beard long and dishevelled ; these 
two carry out the tradition, and as yet artists had 
not seen their way to bring greater freedom into their 
treatment. Raphael has given him as the patron and 
witness, as well as the beautiful boy and the charming 
youth. The Spaniards take him as a child and place him 
with lambs, and suggest the pastoral meaning of his 
retirement, and of his already beginning life as a her- 
mit. 

When the priests and Levites send messengers to 
question John, asking, "Who art thou .'"' Murillo 
paints him with a mantle over his camel's hair tunic, 
and holding his reed cross. Three men are before him, 
one of whom wears spectacles ; a lamb lies in the fore- 
ground ; above are angels, scrolls, and the emblem of Saint 
Mark, from whom are taken the texts inscribed on the 
scroll : "The voice of one crying in the wilderness, 
'Prepare ye the way of the Lord.'" 

In the statue by Michelozzo at Florence, Saint John 
is treated in the same way, with the hair tunic, the cloak 
covering it, and the staff with the cross. The artist 
has varied the expression and action of the two angels ; 
one is addressing many others, the other arguing to him- 
self as if still to be convinced. 

Rembrandt's etching of the " Preaching of John the 
Baptist" is, like that of the Annunciation, the realization 
of a possible scene, something of which we may judge 



i84 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

if we have in our own lives heard the out-door discourse 
of some revivalist, some preacher for the open-air people 
who do not assemble in churches, who have no previous 
acquaintance with too many comforts. 

Not that the people to whom the Baptist speaks are 
merely the poor, or people who are ready for listening. 
Many of them come together in rather a surprised way ; 
we recognize groups of men and women settled into posi- 
tions ; there are many who do not listen ; there are strang- 
ers from far away, a coloured woman or so, monkey- 
carriers, here and there a pleasant face. In itself 
this little group of the caravan is beautifully suggestive 
of the passing crowd, an appeal to minds that are on the 
wing. These people may carry the good news very far ; 
it may reach the Indies, and nations that only slowly 
shall be known to us as having heard the story. 

In the foreground three wise men stand in argument ; 
one evidently holding to the proper observances, per- 
haps some Pharisee with phylacteries around him. They 
turn their backs to the preaching, but not from any 
want of interest ; it is the natural manner observed by 
Rembrandt in the crowds addressed by some great mover 
of minds. 

A cautious pursuer of the truth is trying to follow 
in a book ; near him is a crowd of children and women ; 
the children are being told to keep quiet and not disturb 
the preacher. Many of the audience do not care, and 
others have come for the outing ; quite in the foreground 
children play. The Baptist is in strong light, with the 
curved shoulder and outstretched hand of the preacher 
convinced of his truths ; his mouth opens with his steady 
call ; his eyes are the least important part of his face. 




THE DEATH OF JOHN THE BAPTIST. (Donatello) 



THE DEATH OF JOHN 187 

It is a wonderful story ; something tells us that this is 
important news, and something unutterable separates 
the great man's view of the scene from the vulgar scene 
itself. 

In his treatment of the Baptist's death Donatello 
had his usual success in every department of the bas- 
relief. Indeed, he may be said there to have carried out 
the four effects which Ghiberti, in speaking of his own 
work, lays down as necessary. He said that every such 
work should contain four representations well made out, 
or the effect of four representations, and Donatello has 
placed his figures on several different planes. In the 
first, the Baptist's head is offered to Herod by Herodias 
during the feast ; further back are musicians ; far away, 
on another plane, we see through the windows the exe- 
cutioner showing the head to outside figures, who may 
be Salome and her mother; in the foreground a soldier, 
kneeling, presents the head of the prophet to Herod. 
The evidently drunken tyrant draws back in fright ; 
two children hurry away ; Salome interrupts her dance, 
with a frown difficult to explain. One of the guests 
covers his eyes. The entire group rise to their feet, 
taking hold of one another, and even the dishes are pushed 
away in disorder. 

The tragedy is a grand one, and here the artist begins 
the full use of all the powers of sculpture, so that the 
bas-relief has quite the scope of a painting; indeed, as 
we have said before, Donatello would have been a great 
landscape painter. 

There are musicians also in the painting of Quentin 
Matsys at Antwerp, he whom love "de muliebre fecit 
Apellem." There we have an ugly tyrant, bearded, 



i88 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

and frowning like the Wandering Jew ; Salome pushes 
the plate containing the head upon the fair white table- 
cloth, and her lady mother already cuts at the tongue 
of the Baptist. We feel as if a memory of mediseval 
atrocities had passed into this otherwise graceful and 
gentle picture. It is a pretty scene, notwithstanding 
its subject, and not so far away from the habit of mind 
that gives us the painting wherein the Persian king, Cam- 
byses, seats a young judge in a chair draped with his 
father's skin, torn from him while alive as a punishment 
for bribe-taking. 

In a painting by Filippino Lippi, Elizabeth is bending 
over her son and resting her cheek upon his head as she 
presses him to her, presumably before he goes into the 
desert ; it may have been suggested by seeing a boy tak- 
ing leave of his family before departing for his service, 
so natural is it. 

A bas-relief by Andrea Pisano represents John's dis- 
ciples carrying his body to burial, and there is a tradi- 
tion that he waited in Hades or Limbus until Our Lord's 
appearance there. 

The representations of the Temptation are few. It 
may be that Mrs. Jameson is right in suggesting that it 
was not a subject liked by the Church, a reason which 
might be sufficient. The association of ideas would not 
appeal to the devout, nor would its rendering be followed 
by the prayers and thanks of the faithful. 

It is shown, however, in one of the set by Tintoretto 
which forms the decoration of the Scuola di San Rocco 
in Venice. These pictures are among the very greatest 
triumphs of the master. They are based on landscape, 




THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. (Tintoretto) 



THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST 191 

and take hold of our imagination because they have been 
imagined, not made up, and look as if they had really 
happened. 

Our Lord has had built for Him just enough shelter 
to protect Him from any sudden change, for the climate, 
though not Italian, is not that of Palestine. Some bits 
of wood have been fastened to the growing trees ; Jesus 
sits there and listens with remonstrance to the offer of 
Satan. And it is a real Satan, a real tempter, that rises 
to address the Christ. With all the beauty of woman, 
like some Greek god, the demon half kneels, half rises, 
from the ground and offers to Our Lord the stone which 
He is to change into bread. Satan's fair hair blows in 
the wind ; his eyes are wet with joy ; we are confronted 
with an unknown power, evidently not of earth. The 
wings are ugly, and perhaps meant to be so, but that 
is all that can help one to know who it is, except that 
from the entire figure disengages something that is not 
right, something that is out of place : it is the real and only 
incarnation of the devil ever put into painting. And the 
painting is beautiful ; it would be pleasant to look at all 
the time, were it not that the eye must go behind this 
devilish beauty which has no other meaning than that of 
ironical enticement. Satan does not half believe in his 
chances, but, as we have said, angels were supposed to 
enter deeply into the meaning of their earthly occupations, 
and our Satan is a fallen angel. 

We have in the background of Botticelli's fresco of 
the Sacrifice of the Leper, in the Sistine Chapel, another 
representation of the Temptation of Christ. It comes 
near being extremely important, notwithstanding that 
it is merely a fragment of the distance, nor is it easily 



192 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

connected with the entire story, unless one knows that 
the meaning of the painting was a vindication of the 
apostolate of the Pope, who therein triumphed again 
over his political adversary. The Pope was Sixtus IX ; 
his enemy, Andrew Zamometic, Archbishop of Krain, 
who called a general council at Bale and otherwise at- 
tacked His Holiness. Zamometic's end, as we know, was 
bad ; he was put into prison and committed suicide there. 
On the left, high up on a mountain of arbitrary shape, 
Our Lord is accosted by a monk. The monk puts a 
question to Him by pointing to the stones at His feet, 
and Christ puts away the question with His hand, gently 
raised in remonstrance. In the middle of the picture, also 
high up, is a temple, a Renaissance building, recalling the 
Pope's special interest in architecture, and in the upper- 
most part, where a cupola might have been, Christ 
again is asked by the same monk, evidently now a devil, 
to cast Himself down, while the answer, "Thou shalt 
not tempt the Lord thy God," is signified by the simple 
gesture of the Redeemer. A third scene on the right 
shows us the minister of Hell disrobed, his monk's vest- 
ments flying away from him as he plunges over the edge 
of the precipice, followed by the passionate gesture 
of Christ; the translation of the words "Get thee hence, 
Satan." At the same moment three sweet angels — 
Botticelli's angels — place a table covered with a cloth, 
and with wine in the proper flasks ; a suggestion of 
elegant home life which is delightful ; we feel that the 
trial is over. On the left Christ is coming down talking 
to the same angels, perhaps explaining to them what has 
happened, as He stretches out a hand to make His state- 
ment more distinct. It is an idyll ; that is all. 



THE TEMPTATION OF CHRIST 193 

As Milton tells us in the beautiful lines of the " Para- 
dise Regained " : — 

" So Satan fell ; and straight a fiery globe 
Of Angels on full sail of wing flew nigh, 
Who on their plumy vans received Him soft 
From His uneasy station, and upbore. 
As on a floating couch, through the blithe air ; 
Then, in a flowery valley, set Him down 
On a green bank, and set before Him spread 
A table of celestial food, divine 
Ambrosial fruits fetched from the Tree of Life, 
And from the Fount of Life ambrosial drink. 
That soon refreshed Him wearied, and repaired 
What hunger, if aught hunger, had impaired, 
Or thirst ; and as He fed, Angelic choirs 
Sung heavenly anthems of His victory 
Over temptation and the Tempter proud." 



CHAPTER X 

THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA. THE PRODIGAL SON. 

One of the earliest sculptures gives us Christ and the 
woman of Samaria on either side of a draw-well. They 
are both idealized ; He is young and meant to be hand- 
some, and wears the cloak of a philosopher ; she has 
drawn up the bronze bucket, and Christ extends His 
hands as one speaking. It expresses the meaning of the 
words of our Lord, "I am the living water; whoso 
drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never 
thirst." One likes to think that this sculptor is one of 
those of whom the Fathers have spoken as giving his 
work to the Church. We, to-day, can in our modern 
wanderings reach the sacred places readily, and see the 
well where our Lord sat with the good woman, a very dif- 
ferent well from the pure ideal of our sculpture. 

The Samaritans were fragments of colonies long 
settled, of different races, but established by Assyrian 
power. The Jews looked upon them as strangers, and 
were divided from them by a stern hatred, reciprocated 
on the other side. These schismatic half-believers were 
excommunicated by the Synagogue, but business interests 
and consequent relations kept up a manner of acquaint- 
ance. As our Lord crossed this land of Samaria He 
stopped at the gates of a town called Sychar, feeling 
weary (St. Augustine tells us that His journey in the form 
of the flesh was taken to meet humanity). 
194 



THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA 19S 

His disciples passed into the town for food, as their 
habit was not to carry any with them, and Jesus sat 
down on the brink of the well. Abraham had raised an 
altar in ancient days at Sychar, and there Simeon and 
Levi, sons of Jacob, had killed many Shechemites to 
avenge their sister Dinah. Jacob having bought land 
for his flocks had bequeathed it to Joseph, and had there 
dug a well which was known by Jacob's name. 

There came a woman to draw water, and Jesus said 
unto her, "Give me to drink." She hesitated, and asked 
how it was that a Jew asked a drink of a woman of 
Samaria. 

"Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of 
God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink ; thou wouldst 
have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. 

"The woman saith unto him. Sir, thou hast nothing to draw 
with, and the well is deep ; from whence then hast thou that living 
water ? 

"Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, 
and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle .? 

"Jesus answered and said unto her. Whosoever drinketh of this 
water shall thirst again : 

"But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall 
never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a 
well of water springing up into everlasting life. 

"The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst 
not, neither come hither to draw. 

"Jesus saith unto her. Go, call thy husband, and come hither. 

"The woman answered and said, I have no husband. Jesus said 
unto her, Thou hast well said, I have no husband : 

" For thou hast had five husbands, and he whom thou now hast 
is not thy husband ; in that saidst thou truly. 

"The woman saith unto him. Sir, I perceive that thou art a 
prophet. 



196 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

"Our fathers worshipped in this mountain; and ye say, that in 
Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. 

"Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when 
ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the 
Father. 

" Ye worship ye know not what ; we know what we worship ; for 
salvation is of the Jews. 

" But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers 
shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth ; for the Father seeketh 
such to worship him. 

"God is a spirit, and they that worship him must worship him 
in spirit and in truth. 

" The woman saith unto him, I know that Messiah cometh, which 
is called Christ ; when he is come, he will tell us all things. 

"Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am he. 

"And upon this came his disciples, and marvelled that he talked 
with the woman ; yet no man said. What seekest thou .'' or, Why 
talkest thou with her ^ 

" The woman then left her waterpot, and went her way into the 
city, and saith to the men : 

" Come, see a man which told me all things that ever I did ; is 
not this the Christ ? 

"Then they went out of the city, and came unto him. 

" In the meanwhile his disciples prayed him, saying, Master, eat. 

" But he said unto them, I have meat to eat that ye know not of. 

" Therefore said the disciples one to another. Hath any man brought 
him aught to eat ? 

" Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent 
me, and to finish his work." 

There are two beautiful etchings by Rembrandt, one 
called the "upright plate." As usual, he has seen. 
The well is a half-ruined fragment of the past — it 
is square on the outside and round within, and stones 
have been put against it to hold it up, for it is Jacob's 
well. Christ is sitting on its edge, and His hand covers 



THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA 197 

the further rim ; behind Him are parts of an old building 
against whose ruined wall is set the well-sweep. The 
Samaritan woman, amiable and anxious, holds the rope 
hesitatingly, and her bucket stands on the upper edge. 
She is listening astonished ; Christ, with one foot raised, 
is arguing ; He is a Jew, and a doctor of the faith ; behind 
them both opens a city some way off, and coming up the 
hill toward them are the disciples. But a still more 
extraordinary etching is the "plate in width." Here the 
Lord is even more a Jew ; He stands, and we see only 
a part of Him behind the well ; He speaks. His hand 
is pressed against His heart, the other lies against a 
stone of some ruin, and His face smiles with a look 
kindly and good, but still indoctrinating; the woman 
stands on the other side of the well, her bucket bal- 
anced on the edge, her hands crossed on her waist, 
listening patiently ; slowly the apostles (if it be they) 
come up the hill, and behind them again opens a won- 
derful creation, a city on a hill, seen evidently, and a 
likeness, but of what city } Did Rembrandt, with his 
extraordinary memory, and his painstaking habit of 
getting any information possible, have documents for 
each of these many scenes .'' 

He treated the subject again in a painting which 
formerly belonged to Rudolph Kahn. Here is a dis- 
tant view : there is a wall outside a town, the large 
arches opening on the sky ; from the town come various 
persons curiously looking ; they may be the disciples, or 
they may be men of Sychar. Christ and the woman are 
behind the well, or, rather, she is on one side of it, and 
He is seated alongside in half shadow ; she has dropped 
her bucket halfway down, and holds the chain with 



198 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

two hands, looking at Him, and evidently not believing; 
over the edge of the well a curious child, partly hidden, 
looks up. The Christ, again a Jew, we see in half shadow, 
and He talks with uplifted hand, explaining. No de- 
scription can give the extraordinary accuracy of this tran- 
scription apparently from nature. Compared with this 
curious vision the very interesting, but less poetic, painting 
at Saint Petersburg is more of a set composition. There 
Rembrandt has again put a child listening and following 
the conversation ; we merely see his head, and he is 
evidently a stranger. 

We may give, in comparison to the Rembrandts, 
a painting of that serious and religious man, the so-called 
Jansenist Philippe de Champaigne, which follows the 
classical French teaching and tradition of meeting all 
the points of the story. The woman standing both 
accepts and rejects — she is astonished, but not inimical ; 
behind her we see a classical well and a classical urn ; 
Christ, seated on the edge of the well, leans with one 
arm on a bit of stone, that arm and hand pointing up, 
while the other hand is spread out in expostulation or 
explanation ; His face is handsome and dignified, worthy 
of the serious mind which elaborated the picture and 
filled in the architectural distance, in all probability 
made up of Eastern recollections and bits of old France. 

In the graceful poise of all the lines, in the simplicity 
of the intention, there is something dignified, which has 
made me choose it in preference to more picturesque 
representations. 

We may forget how our Lord passed from one place 
to another, and on what exact mission, and what its 




CHRIST AND THE WOMAN OF SAMARIA. (Philippe de Champaigne) 



THE PRODIGAL SON 201 

end, but we remember His parables and sayings, and 
their messages. Within our narrow compass we can only 
give the parable of the Prodigal Son. He who thinks 
that he can state' the Story of the Gospel better than 
as given in the text has not understood it. The text is 
better than any commentary. 

Rembrandt has painted the return of the Prodigal 
Son definitively. We see the father looking toward 
us, bending over the ragged creature who, kneeling, hides 
his face in the fatherly bosom. Pity and love pour from 
the father's venerable and yet over-sensitive face ; his 
hands press with a sort of hesitating encouragement upon 
the shoulders of the prodigal. For him all else has dis- 
appeared — there is but this one event, the return ; the 
prodigal, too, has but one expression : he is back again 
at last, and his closed eye dreams of the past which is 
happily over. The bystanders do not approve. The 
brother looks down on the weakening of the father, and 
each line of his face, from uplifted eyebrow to drawn- 
in mouth, objects to such want of principle. Every 
detail of the face is a study, and the hands, too, are part 
of the protest — one thumb has passed over the other, 
and will again go under, and the first come up. The 
other seated figure is rather curious, but looks at the 
scene dispassionately; he also is not a partner in the 
welcome ; behind all some woman's face and shoulders 
appear, perhaps the daughter, or daughter-in-law; she, 
too, has a look of curiosity, and not of sympathy. The 
old man is a squanderer of the good things that belong 
to him. The painting is in itself a parable. 

There is another Rembrandt, an etching, done m^any 
years before the painting : it is dated 1636. However 



202 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

great the artist, however inventive, however intelligent 
as an observer of human nature, the older man who 
painted the first picture would understand the subject 
better, and perhaps might himself have felt the feelings 
that he painted. Still, as invention, the famous etching 
deserves its place. The father comes rapidly out of the 
house to meet the half-naked son who kneels and presses 
his head against his father's heart, the father frowning 
upon him with anxiety as he realizes the miseries crowded 
into the body of his son ; his emaciation, his cramped 
legs, his trembling arm, while he himself is comfortably 
robed and slippered. Higher up some one brings the 
necessary clothing down some steps ; perhaps it may be 
the brother ; there is no good-will, and the woman who 
opens the shutter and looks out is also not in favour of 
the old man's weakness ; we might say even more, as we 
note her savage frown and the ugly eye that lights up 
her face. 




THE PRODIGAL SON. (Rembrandt) 



CHAPTER XI 

CHRIST IN THE HOUSE OF MARY AND MARTHA. THE 
MARRIAGE OF CANA 

The Lord had rebuked the Pharisees, thereby giving 
a lesson to His Church, so that the illusion of a false idea 
of justice should not corrupt the truth. There have been 
Pharisees among Christians, because all vices belong 
to the human race, but nothing is more opposed to the 
Church than Phariseeism in doctrine or in manner. 

Passing by Bethany, Jesus rested in a certain vil- 
lage ; "and a certain woman named Martha received 
him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, 
which also sat at Jesus' feet, and heard His word. But 
Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to 
him, and said. Lord, dost thou not care that my sister 
hath left me to serve alone ? Bid her therefore that she 
help me. And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, 
Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things ; 
but one thing is needful : and Mary hath chosen that 
good part, which shall not be taken away from her." 

Tradition holds that Mary was the Mary Magdalen 
forgiven at the banquet of the Pharisee Simon. Of what 
Jesus spoke that day the Holy Spirit has preserved only 
this word of the "better part" which explains the one 
thing necessary for the happiness of the soul, the one 
thing without which all is fatigue or only momentary 
pleasure. Martha is not blamed, for she wishes to help, 

205 



2o6 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

but she learns that work done for the Lord is to be done 
in peace and humility; that it is especially through 
love that He is to be served. Thus the teaching goes 
into the question of the contemplative life. The saints 
have looked upon God in contemplation. Martha has 
served the Lord, but Mary will be at the foot of the 
Cross. 

Two famous painters have given us that visit. Ve- 
lasquez painted it in his earlier days in what we might 
call a vulgar way, because we cannot in our modern 
falsity of impression get rid of the idea of pictures 
in galleries, and the competition of exhibitions ; we 
forget that religious pictures formerly served in the 
ordinary household as reminders ; a dining room might 
have pictures taken from the Gospel or the Old Testament 
or the lives of saints, whereas now we should have only 
the Banquet of Simon or the Marriage of Cana, and 
so forth. If there be one thing in which I can help my 
readers, it is by recalling to them this fact. Then at 
once the idea of "the commonplace" will disappear, 
because we are only looking at something meant for the 
home life of every day. Occasionally the treatment of 
such texts passes into splendour, as in the great Paul 
Veronese and other beautiful canvases ; but there must 
have been small people who needed small things ; so 
Velasquez painted a kitchen scene. The cook is at the 
table, or, rather, probably, a young kitchenmaid. She 
is seen at half length, using a pestle and mortar. On 
the table there are some uncooked fish, a plate of eggs, 
and a water jug. An elderly woman close behind her 
touches her on the shoulder and points, giving her some 
order or reproof, and she listens indifferently, with the 



CHRIST IN THE HOUSE OF MARY AND MARTHA 207 

usual unwillingness to obey. In that way the painting 
is all that it can be. It belongs to a class which the 
Spaniards called "Bodegones," that is to say, kitchen and 
tavern scenes, at a certain moment the fashion throughout 
Spain, as we remember in thinking of the novels of that 
period : this is one of the results of the new movement. 
Pacheco, Velasquez's father-in-law, said of him: "He 
disliked plebeian art, and yet are we to hold these Bode- 
gones as of no account ^ No ; they are certainly to be 
valued ; these, when painted as Velasquez paints them, 
deserve high esteem, for with these elements he discovered 
the true Imitation of nature." And the great Palamino 
says : "Velasquez in his early days took to representing 
with singular fancy and notable genius, beasts, birds, 
fish, fishmarkets, with perfect imitation of nature ; also 
all manner of household goods, or anything necessary 
which poor, beggarly people in low life make use of." 

All this explains the naturalness of certain early 
works of his. But now comes the wonderfully realistic 
and yet noble representation of the story. We are, as 
I said, in the kitchen, but in the background, in what 
appears to be an Inner chamber, seen through a door, 
the Saviour is addressing Martha, who has come forward 
to protest concerning Mary, who Is kneeling before Him. 
The scene is Spanish ; Mary is a young Spanish woman 
with long, loose hair, and of an absolutely different type 
from Martha, with just the expression that we need for 
a suggestion that she may possibly be Mary Magdalen, and 
yet not too much. Martha is what she ought to be In 
every language and In every race, and the Christ, though 
not very spiritual, is still a preacher. He speaks with 
the manner that Velasquez must have seen in religious 



2o8 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

Spain; the same that we know In all countries. The 
story is perhaps all the more real from that simple scene 
in front. Indeed, if it were not for our prejudices, it 
might almost be Martha who, in the foreground of the 
picture, addresses the indifferent kitchen maid. 

Far apart in one sense is the Tintoretto. We are in 
Italy ; the costumes of the two women are purely Venetian. 
One of them, Martha, is in her best dress to receive a 
visitor, and we feel that Mary should also attend to the 
reception of their guests. Christ is not alone; there is 
some one at the table, there is someone else coming in, 
and outside is the group of disciples in the sunlight. 
We should think of the scene as more enclosed, in more 
of a chamber perhaps, but Tintoretto paints a Venetian 
habit of hospitality for us. We do not know for what wall 
it was painted, in what home it was meant to remind the 
household of something beyond the dinner or supper at 
which they were gathered. The meal, also, in the Italian 
way, is prepared within sight. We are in the best room, 
but the curtain is partly drawn and we can look into a 
generous kitchen where a maid is at work, and where on 
the wall, on long shelves, are arrayed the plates which 
are both for the pride and for the use of the household. 
Below there are other things for the table, and white 
napkins and a tablecloth. Christ argues, teaching and 
explaining, but much more as addressing Mary than as 
rebuking Martha. He, too, is of Venice, as far as His 
gown and His cloak, and His hand argues in the Italian 
way. Mary does not exactly kneel ; she seems to be 
rising under the rebuke of her sister and hesitating while 
listening to the words that save her from blame. 

The painting is, of course, a grand composition, but 




CHRIST L\ iUK HOUSE OF MARY AND MARTHA. (Tintorltto) 



CHRIST IN THE HOUSE OF MARY AND MARTHA 211 

that we expect from the great man whose faculty for 
letting himself go brings often to our minds the great 
Rembrandt. 

Another remarkable man, not a genius, but a person 
of much nobility of character and of expression, almost 
within the influence of the meaning of religion and the 
influences of the Gospel, but with the defects due to the 
regularity of the French mind, has painted the subject 
very differently — I mean Le Sueur. Here we have the 
tendency of his moment, which could not be further 
from that which moulded the art of Velasquez. We are 
in the presence of what is called "the academic," and yet 
there is throughout a sense of the real scene, especially 
in regard to the persons of the background, such as the 
men bringing down baskets and being told where to 
go by the major domo, and (seen through the high-arched 
door of the French convention) the maid servant spreading 
the tablecloth on a noble table. Back in this large hall 
stand the apostles, a noble group, quite indifferent to the 
scene, and apparently seeing nothing of it, but beauti- 
fully posed and all within the French tradition which 
was just beginning. In the middle the Saviour sits on 
the classical seat, with one foot on the footstool offered to 
the guest : He points with one hand upward as referring 
to "the better part," and with the other He expostulates 
with Martha. His is a noble figure, but still academic. 
Martha is a Frenchwoman of the period — that period 
floating between Jansenism and the opposite — and her 
gesture, which is quite right, belongs to a respectful 
and orderly France. Mary kneels, listening, absorbed 
in the saying of the Christ ; her hands are clasped, as 
one who listens to a lesson. In that way we have a 



212 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

splendid presentation and yet, relatively to the simple 
statement of Velasquez, it is not filled with reality. 

"And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; 
and the mother of Jesus was there. 

"And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage. 

" And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, 
They have no wine. 

" Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee ? 
mine hour is not yet come. 

" His mother saith unto the servants. Whatsoever he saith unto 
you, do it. 

" And there were set there six waterpots of stone, after the manner 
of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. 
Jesus saith unto them. Fill the waterpots with water. And they 
filled them up to the brim. 

"And he saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the 
governor of the feast. And they bare it. 

" When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made 
wine, and knew not whence it was (but the servants which drew 
the water knew) the governor of the feast called the bridegroom. 

"And saith unto him, Every man at the beginning doth set forth 
good wine ; and when men have well drunk, then that which is worse ; 
but thou hast kept the good wine until now." 

It was not only in such a case as the meeting of the 
Jew with the Samaritan that the Pharisee was shocked — 
a perpetual watchfulness followed the Saviour in His 
journey, as to what He said and did, and as to His 
mingling freely with persons of easy life, and so we 
have records of the feastings. We have noticed the use 
of certain paintings in dining halls and in refectories 
to bring in some pious feeling at mealtime, as if asking 
a blessing on the meal and also making formal recognition 
of the propriety of religion. The great people who have 



THE MARRIAGE OF CANA 213 

been able thus to decorate their walls have invariably 
represented the particular way of thinking of the period. 
We have gained by this some marvels of painting, espe- 
cially in Venice, when the blending of business, religion 
and enjoyment of the best in every way marked the full 
flowering of its splendour. 

Titian has not painted the dinners that he gave, 
for his were private and artistic ; the great banquets of 
the Doges and Senators were different. Paul Veronese 
has painted the "Marriage of Cana," a rival of his other 
great painting (which is still in Venice), the " Feast in the 
House of Levi." The " Marriage of Cana " in the Louvre 
is almost too well known for further description. Looked 
at in a print or in the gallery, the wise critic will remark 
that there is "too much architecture"; it seems so be- 
cause we are no longer accustomed to live in noble build- 
ings, and we modern painters have been forced to become 
Pharisees and keep to a manner of decoration which 
will not disturb modern walls. And what is sad is that 
this curious narrowness of feeling has had place more 
especially in examples of the best art of our day. There 
was a time when the painter took up and continued the 
architectural forms of the wall beside him, and the great 
Paul Veronese is now in a foreign land of art even in 
the grandeur of the Louvre. His clear and sane archi- 
tecture looks like a final condemnation of the modern 
French curved ceilings, and the mean openings of the 
doors through which we pass to look at him. The huge 
picture was not returned in 181 5, like so many others, 
for it seemed cruel, even to the spoliators of Paris, to 
risk the gigantic canvas across the Alps a second time. 
Its great size was quite in place in the triumphant archi- 



214 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

lecture of joyous Venice, where the high buildings which 
fill so much of the painting carried up to the ceiling the 
lines of doors which were in the real walls enriched by this 
noble decoration. Paul Veronese studied at once paint- 
ing, sculpture, and architecture, working in each of these 
divisions of art with the good nature and good sense 
which marked the centuries that preceded our modern 
scientific division of feeling from thought, so that Veronese, 
the architect, has built in his paintings architectural 
decorations equal in their nobility of taste to the creations 
of Sansovino or Palladio. As a sculptor he built his 
figures solidly from within. The foreshortening in his 
ceiling decorations is as easy to him as to Correggio, yet 
all his science disappears in the joyous and easy surface 
work of the great Venetian. The Marriage is difficult 
to describe ; the Christ, the disciples, and the Mother 
are (as they should be in such a space) a small part of 
the enormous scene ; even the guests of all kinds are more 
or less hidden by the musicians in the foreground, whom 
we know to be portraits of the friends of the artist. Not- 
withstanding the crowd one can distinguish the governor 
of the feast, who tries the wine ; we have dogs, a parrot, 
and above us many attendants working in the open 
air instead of in a dark cellar; the tables covered with 
gold and silver, and then, in the clear sky, between the 
great columns, the flying pigeons of Venice. 

The Feast at the House of Levi is another chance 
to fill a great space with many figures. The scale is 
real and the splendid architectural ornamentation of 
a real building in the same Venetian sky is given with 
astounding accuracy. The painter has placed the Christ 
in the distance at the long table so that our eye, following 



THE MARRIAGE OF CANA 217 

all the lines as it would do in nature, comes to Him as 
He converses and explains merely by an inclination of 
head and shoulder. The realities of the photograph 
are there invented. 

This picture occasioned a curious incident in the story 
of painting. It was not made for an ordinary dining 
room, but for a church, and its magnificence and appear- 
ance of earthly joy seemed insolent to the Holy Office 
of the Inquisition, so that Paul Veronese was brought 
up before it on the eighteenth day of July, 1573, and 
was reprimanded for having placed in this picture of the 
Feast at the House of Levi, " buffoons, dogs, and German 
halberdiers." 

Another spirit, and a dramatic one, breathes through 
the similar festival compositions of Tintoretto. One 
realizes sometimes, but only for a moment, that the 
great man admired another even greater than himself. 
Tintoretto bowed the knee before the gigantic Michael 
Angelo, and something of this adoration has passed into 
his work without any imitation, without any wish to do 
more than indicate as a student the grasp of a man who 
was perhaps the farthest away from Venice. Tintoretto 
has also painted the Marriage at Cana, and, through a 
trick of perspective has devised another way of making 
us see the Saviour. We are at the end of a long table, 
and are trying the wine, as is the maid servant who is 
arguing with the governor of the feast ; but the guests, 
of course, are seated, in the absence of knowledge of 
any trouble, and talk to each other, the ladies on one 
side and the men on the other, in the proper way which 
Tintoretto knew; one of the ladies at the corner of the 
table turns around to inquire what the delay may be. 



2i8 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

The big hall is again, as in the other houses of Italy, 
partly occupied by the preparations for the feast. There 
is no separation of the means and the end which we have 
learned to observe, and so a big crowd gathers in the dis- 
tance to watch how the feast goes on. These special 
moments of our story belong to Venice ; all other images 
are abstract. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM. CHRIST BIDS FAREWELL 
TO HIS MOTHER. THE LAST SUPPER. THE WASHING 
OF FEET. THE DISPUTE OF THE EUCHARIST. 

The Entry into Jerusalem was a great symbolic tri- 
umph, but its simplicity does not give to our minds, trained 
in Roman views, an adequate sense of external importance. 
Our Saviour rode, as we know, upon an ass, whereon 
never man sat. From the distance that we of the West 
are now from the East, it is plausible, at least to me, 
that the intentional humility of the Entry has prevented 
its popularity with art, however great the opportunities 
might have been. In various pictures we see people 
casting palms and spreading their garments before the 
gentle King, coming into His Kingdom, but none are very 
convincing. 

There is a separate subject, Our Lord weeping over 
the city. Saint Luke says, "As he drew near the city 
he wept over it." There is on one of the porches of 
Amiens a bas-relief of this scene ; a very wonderful 
adequate statement, which we understand in a singular 
way, without even knowing exactly its reference to the 
Gospel. It is evidently deep sorrow, expressed only by 
the slightest motion ; there is no attitude of grief, nothing 
but that intangible agitation of the entire human form, 
by which we feel that the body is impressed by a sorrow- 
ful thought. 



220 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

The Farewell of Christ to His Mother, a subject 
taken from the apocryphal gospels, appears late in the 
development of Art. Correggio gives the story in an 
evening light, wherein are four figures. In the distance 
we see the streaked sunset sky. The Christ kneels 
before His Mother, bending His head, with arms crossed, 
as if waiting for her blessing. The youthful figure of 
Saint John looks at the Christ sadly, as if about to break 
into helpless speech. The Mother, lost in grief, dares 
not turn toward her Son ; her mouth is trembling, her 
eyes are unseeing — one arm is helplessly lifted just a 
little, the other rests on those of the Magdalen who 
supports her. 

It is a late Italian subject, Venetian also, but not 
peculiar to Italy, for one of Diirer's finest woodcuts in 
his series of the Passion gives it also. 

There is but one Last Supper — the "Cenacolo" of 
the Italian painters. All others fade before Leonardo's 
injured and vanishing masterpiece at Saint Maria delle 
Grazie in Milan, although we must remember and be 
just to some other paintings of the subject which tell 
the story either piously or conventionally. 

The record of the Last Supper as later art imagined it 
does not appear directly in the earliest images, as we may 
remember with regard to the famous painting in the 
catacombs, the Breaking of Bread, which is a representa- 
tion of the real solemnization and not the symbolical 
image of doctrine. That the last survivors of the Supper 
may have looked on that very painting in the catacombs 
— for according to tradition Saint John lived to a very 
great age — is enough to give to the almost accidental 



THE LAST SUPPER 221 

picture a connection with the Last Supper that we 
hesitate to put aside. And yet, of course, the doctrinal 
picture or image is entirely different. The earlier repre- 
sentations are not important, indeed they trouble us as 
we get into the full mediaeval practice, by certain 
details, such as Saint John leaning on the shoulder of 
Christ, or even lying in His lap. We dislike to be re- 
minded of these smaller points. The very importance 
of the subject has kept it from frequent treatment. It 
is not a part of the Passion of our Lord ; it is the be- 
ginning of an institution carried through the centuries, 
both in doctrine and practice, and marks the actual 
permanence of Christ Himself. Respect for the impor- 
tance of its meaning also protected it, in the earlier days, 
from any theatrical representation, although the Supper 
at Emmaus was one of the subjects given in the theatres. 

Leonardo's difficulties were great. There was the 
mechanical difficulty of grouping a number of people 
together, yet indicating that One alone was all the picture ; 
that had remained a problem to all who had attempted it. 
And then, how was it possible to tell the story of the 
sadness of the scene, to give the echo of His words, 
"Verily I say unto you, one of you shall betray me," and 
yet bring together the ordinary images of men at table ? 
Nor could it be splendid, as in the great feasts of Tin- 
toretto or Rubens, — and by some means the terrible 
story of the treachery of Judas must be told. 

By a curious good fortune we have Leonardo's 
own notes : 

"One who was drinking leaves the cup in its place and turns his 
head toward the speaker. Another folds the fingers of his hands 
together and with unbending rigid look turns to his neighbour: 



222 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

that other, with open hands, shows his palms, lifts his shoulders up 
to his ears and gives the expression of marvelling with his lips. One 
speaks into the ear of another, and he who listens turns toward the 
speaker, while he holds a knife in one hand and in the other his bread, 
already half cut. The other on turning, holding a knife in hand, 
pours with that hand from a cup upon the table. Another places 
hands upon the table and gazes ; another swells his mouth ; another, 
to look the better at the speaker, shades his eyes with his hand. 
Another turns just the other way from him who bends, and looks 
at the speaker between the wall and the one turning." 



We read with some satisfaction the prosaic analysis 
by Leonardo of how he should dispose the movements 
of the disciples. He has not suggested in his crude notes 
what he proposed to do for the great figure ; he might, 
indeed, have indicated it by one of his curiously intel- 
lectual abbreviations. However, the figure of Christ 
means all the more to us to-day because the unfinished, 
faded face brings back to us the hesitation of the painter, 
who found it impossible to carry out in full the intention 
of his portrait. 

The appearance, the vision of a sacrament^ has been 
placed by him before us, and this meaning is given 
by his manner of rendering the text. 

The Saviour bends His eyes down ; His thought is on 
Himself ; He is abstaining from looking, so as not to see 
the traitor Judas, which tells the feeling of the Divine 
Sufferer. That knowledge of the treachery or the dere- 
liction of the friend is to us all the one cruel thing, the 
sorrow which makes Him one of us, and us one with 
Him. He has just spoken and is now silent. His two 
hands on the table represent the previous attitude of 
speech; the one is open, the other turned away, and 



THE ENTRY INTO JERUSALEM 225 

those hands are near to the hand of Judas — "Behold, the 
hand of him who betrayeth me is with me on the table." 

Around the central sad peace of the Christ, we see the 
agitation of the disciples, their indignant expression of 
abhorrence, and the terrible anxiety of the traitor. That 
has to be, because it is in the story, but it is only the 
fringe of the subject, which is the sorrow of Our Lord. 

It is not unfitting to quote directly and in full from 
Vasari. He has described the picture, wonderful then, 
in his own accustomed way, and he gives us the history 
of how it came to be painted : 

"For the Dominican monks of Santa Maria delle Grazie at Milan, 
he also painted a Last Supper, which is a most beautiful and admi- 
rable work ; to the heads of the Apostles in this picture the master 
gave so much beauty and majesty that he was constrained to leave 
that of Christ unfinished, being convinced that he could not impart 
to it the divinity which should appertain to and distinguish an image 
of the Redeemer. But this work, remaining thus in its unfinished 
state, has been ever held in the highest estimation by the Milanese, 
and not by them only, but by foreigners also. Leonardo succeeded 
to perfection in expressing the doubts and anxiety experienced by 
the apostles, and the desire felt by them to know by whom their 
Master is to be betrayed ; in the faces of all appear love, terror, anger, 
or grief and bewilderment, unable as they are to fathom the meaning 
of their Lord. Nor is the spectator less struck with admiration 
by the force and truth with which, on the other hand, the master 
has exhibited the impious determination, hatred, and treachery of 
Judas. The whole work indeed is executed with inexpressible dili- 
gence even in the most minute part ; among other things may be men- 
tioned the table-cloth, the texture of which is copied with such 
exactitude, that the linen cloth itself could scarcely look more real. 
It is related that the Prior of the Monastery was excessively 
importunate in pressing Leonardo to complete the picture ; he could 
in no way comprehend wherefore the artist should sometimes remain 

Q 



226 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

half a day together absorbed in thought before his work, without 
making any progress that he could see ; this seemed to him a strange 
waste of time, and he would fain have had him work away as he could 
make the men do who were digging in his garden, never laying the 
pencil out of his hand. Not content with seeking to hasten Leo- 
nardo, the Prior even complained to the Duke, and tormented him to 
such a degree that the latter was at length compelled to send for 
Leonardo, whom he courteously entreated to let the work be finished, 
assuring him nevertheless that he did so because impelled by the 
importunities of the Prior. Leonardo, knowing the Prince to be 
intelligent and judicious, determined to explain himself fully on the 
subject with him, although he had never chosen to do so with the 
Prior. He therefore discoursed with him at some length respecting 
art, and made it perfectly manifest to his comprehension that men 
of genius are sometimes producing most when they seem to be labor- 
ing least, their minds being occupied in the elucidation of their ideas, 
and in the completion of those conceptions to which they afterwards 
give form and expression with the hand. He further informed the 
Duke that there were still wanting to him two heads, one of which, 
that of the Saviour, he could not hope to find on earth, and had not 
yet attained the power of presenting it to himself in imagination, 
with all that perfection of beauty and celestial grace which appeared 
to him to be demanded for the due representation of the Divinity 
incarnate. The second head still wanting was that of Judas, which 
also caused him some anxiety, since he did not think it possible to 
imagine a form of feature that should properly render the counte- 
nance of a man who, after so many benefits received from his master, 
had possessed a heart so depraved as to be capable of betraying his 
Lord and the Creator of the world : with regard to that second, 
however, he would make search, and after all — if he could find no 
better, he need never be at any great loss, for there would always 
be the head of that troublesome and impertinent Prior.^ This made 

* The jesting threat of Leonardo has given rise to the belief that the head of Judas 
was in fact a portrait of the Prior, but the character of Leonardo makes it most unlikely 
that he could have offered this affront to an old man who was merely causing him a 
momentary vexation by a very pardonable, if not very reasonable, impatience; we 
learn besides that Padre Bandelli, who was at that time Prior, "erat facie magna et 
venusta, capita magno, et procedente setate calvo capillisque canls consperso." 



THE LAST SUPPER 227 

the Duke laugh with all his heart; he declared Leonardo to be com- 
pletely in the right, and the poor Prior, utterly confounded, went 
away to drive on the digging in his garden, and left Leonardo in 
peace : the head of Judas was then finished so successfully that it 
is indeed the true image of treachery and wickedness ; but that of 
the Redeemer remained, as we have said, incomplete. The admirable 
excellence of this picture, the beauty of its composition, and the care 
with which it was executed awakened in the King of France a desire 
to have it removed into his own kingdom, insomuch that he made 
many attempts to discover architects who might be able to secure it 
by defences of wood and iron, that it might be transported without 
injury. He was not to be deterred by any consideration of the cost 
that might be incurred, but the painting being on the wall his maj- 
esty was compelled to forego his desire, and the Milanese retained 
their picture." 



Needless to say the painting is wrecked and has 
been wrecked over and over and over again by official 
carelessness, repainting, and brutality, such as the cutting 
of a door through it, A drawing (also a mere shade) 
in the Brera gives again Leonardo's attempt at the 
expression of the Christ. 

The painting by Fra Angelico of the Cenacolo is 
remarkably successful, and suggests that large upper room 
where the disciples assembled and which was mysteriously 
prepared for them by their following the servant carrying 
a pitcher of water, and making the goodman of the house 
understand that the Master should eat the Passover 
there. In that upper room they were to find the 
requisite tables and couches, and there they made ready 
the Passover. 

This brings us to the question of the necessary attitudes 
of the personages. Cushions on couches, each large 
enough to hold three, were placed around three sides of 



228 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

one or more low tables. The seat of honour was a central 
one. This, of course, was occupied by the Lord. Each 
guest lay at full length, leaning on his left elbow, for the 
custom of eating the Passover standing had long been 
abandoned ; reclining had taken its place because it was 
the habit of free men. 

Thus we understand how at the right hand of Jesus 
lay the beloved disciple, whose head therefore could at 
any moment be leaning on Jesus' bosom. And Simon 
Peter beckoned to him that he should ask who it was 
of whom He spake. He then, lying on Jesus' breast, 
asked the question. I mention this because there is a very 
beautiful painting, by Moretto at Brescia, in which the 
two apostles, John and Peter, form a composition of 
the same movements on either side of the erect figure 
of Christ, which separates that part of the story from the 
meaning of the attitudes of the other disciples. Perhaps 
Moretto knew the Leonardo at Milan, for behind the 
Christ a window opens with a division of two columns, 
very beautifully emphasizing the erectness of the figure 
of our Lord. 

[We may realize how far from the possible fact of 
the time is that long line of table, so natural to us 
from association In the great Leonardo.] 

The strife caused by the apostles taking their seats 
and insisting on their privileges brings in the office of 
the Washing of Feet and the lesson of humility taught 
by Our Lord. 

Saint John mentions the washing of the feet of the 
disciples, telling us how Christ rose from supper "and 
laid aside his garments, took a towel, and girded himself. 



THE WASHING OF FEET 231 

After that, he poured water into a basin and began to 
wash the disciples' feet and to wipe them with the towel 
wherewith he was girded. Then cometh he to Simon 
Peter. Peter saith unto him, 'Thou shalt never wash my 
feet.' Jesus answered him, ' If I wash thee not, thou hast 
no part with me.' Simon Peter saith, 'Lord, not my feet 
only, but also my hands and my head.'" 

This is a moment which art has not adopted, nor has it 
followed the text which described the Christ as having 
put aside His garments, thereby rendering Him naked to 
the waist. The meaning of words has changed, for us 
especially, and we, to whom the past and the East are 
not familiar, need not trouble about the question. There 
is a curious and rather striking representation on a very 
old sarcophagus found in the Catacombs, where our Lord 
stands with a long cloth around His neck, reaching far 
below His knees. 

Naturally, from the text, the artists took up the fact 
that Peter was not the first, and so, in Giotto's painting, 
in the Arena Chapel, Christ kneels before Peter, holding 
one of the feet of His servant, and He holds out the other 
hand, teaching, as it were. The great man conceived 
this chance of expressing the higher meaning at the same 
time with the humble and prosaic occupation. Our 
picture gives it well enough ; we see one of the disciples 
(presumably Judas, from artistic tradition) fastening 
his sandals. In contrast, two young disciples carry water 
and help to give official service to the Christ. In fact, they 
look like attendant angels. 

Fra Angelico has made a more realistic rendering, and 
has, by some arrangement of space and intensity of 
movement in the few figures, given an importance to his 



232 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

treatment which brings up, even mofe than Giotto's, the 
idea of some sacred action carrying spiritual meaning and 
benefit. Christ offers His service — His hands show- 
that — and His face is earnest, yet expectant of 
the obedience of Peter. There is a look, also, of per- 
suasion, of kindly offering, which assures us of the im- 
portance of the act, in connection with what has gone 
before and what is to come after. In that way, the good 
Brother has created an extraordinary figure as mere art, 
for even without action of the disciples we should have this 
sense. Peter, as we see, is troubled and withdraws, and 
another of the disciples watches the Lord anxiously with 
an expression of inquiry. He knows that it is something 
more than a usual kindness. 

Raphael's fresco of " The Dispute of the Eucharist," 
in the Stanze of the Vatican, is one of the celebrated pic- 
tures of the world, a triumph of knowledge, of intelligence, 
an assemblage of many meanings, and, in fact, a sort of 
encyclopaedia of almost everything except the actual 
realization of a vision, which is, after all, its inten- 
tion. The reason seems to me to be that the necessity 
for a great arrangement of the architectural disposition 
has taken mental effort, and that is opposed to what I 
call "vision." We know that an architectural arrange- 
ment remains an intellectual problem, and does not appear 
to the mind's eye as a part of nature. It is necessary 
to notice these few objections before treating of the 
enormous success. Let us see now what Raphael 
has accomplished. In the opposite painting, *' The 
School of Athens," he wished to signify the triumph 
of intellect, following successfully the pursuit of philo- 




THE WASHING OF FEET. (Giotto) 



THE DISPUTE OF THE EUCHARIST 235 

sophic truth. The moment in Italian development is 
just the moment for this great record. In the 
Dispute we have a symbolical description of the relation 
of man to God by the redemption through Christ and 
the mystery of the Eucharist. The Eucharist is the 
subject of the painting. Below, in the very centre, 
above steps of white marble, on a square, simple altar 
is placed an ostensorium containing the Host, encircled 
by rays of light. On either side, grouped in a half circle, 
are Fathers of the Church, saints, and illustrious persons, 
legendary or contemporaneous, forty-two in all. On 
the left, seated on a classical bench ornamented with 
chimerse, is Saint Gregory, looking up, crowned with 
the papal mitre. Near him, further back, Saint Jerome 
spreads and opens the leaves of a great book, and is deep 
in search. His young clerk looks up at him as if expecting 
some speech. Behind, as if speaking to Saint Jerome, 
and telling him where to look, a priest in an embroidered 
cloak points with both arms to the solution of all diffi- 
culties — the Eucharist itself. His long gesture continues 
the line of the altar and the lines of the landscape, and 
gently brings back the meaning of the entire composition 
to one idea, and in that we see a triumph of meaning and 
of technical arrangement. Quite near us, on the first 
step, is the figure of some philosopher and another of a 
saint, from whose hands a couple of books near him have 
dropped. We feel that he looks directly to the Eucharist, 
absorbed by it. A youthful, saintly figure, partly 
clad in white, kneels with devotion, stretching leg and 
foot to the higher step. His hands indicate admiration 
or adoration. Next to him is another whose arm, 
extended, makes a wide gesture of recognition, as of listen- 



236 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

ing to some statement. Behind them are bishops with 
mitres, waiting, as it were, for more discourse. Another 
bishop converses with monks and bearded hermits ; 
others we see listening or talking, in a long line. Leaning 
on the balustrade in front, Bramante, erect in a long 
coat, shows pages of an open book, arguing with a young 
man of classic, Raphaelistic beauty, who leaves him, 
stepping toward, and pointing up to, the Eucharist, as 
if it were a sufficient answer to Bramante's incredulity. 
The figure might be Raphael himself — if not his portrait, 
at least his suggestion. His life was one of the most 
charming and successful of all existences, and he is well 
named "The Divine," which in Italian has something 
more than a spiritual meaning — it signifies the successful 
also. While these two talk, two others dissertate behind 
them, one pointing to some passage in the book held by 
the architect. On the right-hand side of the pamting, 
seated and clad in sacerdotal dress. Saint Augustine, 
turning sideways, dictates, with closed book and extended 
arm, to a young clerk who bends over the scroll upon 
his knee. (The dictation is supposed to be from the 
Saint's book, "The City of God.") Saint Ambrose, also 
seated, with bishop's mitre, looks up to the heavenly 
vision pointed out to him by John Lombard, Bishop of 
Paris. Duns Scotus, in monkish frock, stands near 
them. Behind the two fathers stands Pope Anacletus, 
palm in hand. On either side of the Pope, Saint Thomas 
Aquinas, in Dominican costume, and Saint Bonaventura 
in his cardinal's dress, reading carefully in a book. Nearer 
to us. Saint Innocent III blesses all those present in 
the accustomed papal way. Quite near, an elderly man 
in antique costume points to the Pope while he speaks to 



THE DISPUTE OF THE EUCHARIST 239 

a youth who leans on the wall. The corner of the painting 
is the wall which runs, like the opposite balustrade, out 
of the picture and carries us into further possibil- 
ities, for Raphael has always taken great care of the 
accessories of his paintings, so as to imply something 
beyond the mere frame confining the subject. Between 
these figures, further back, is the head of Dante, crowned 
with laurel, and a portrait said to be Savonarola. Above, 
in the sky, are the three persons of the Trinity, God the 
Father carrying his symbolic globe and giving His blessing. 
Around Him spreads an artificial but beautiful arrange- 
ment of rays of light, through which one sees the seraphim 
and cherubim between two groups of angels, half seen 
in luminous clouds, who are flying toward the Lord. 
They are far away, and the reality of their distance is 
one of the great triumphs of the painting. Below the 
arrangement of cherubim in the centre is seated the 
Christ, opening His hands pierced with the nails. He 
is naked to the waist as if just stepping from the Cross. 
On either side are the Virgin and Saint John, who is point- 
ing, in the usual manner, to the Virgin bending in adora- 
tion. Below, in a luminous disk, the Holy Ghost in the 
shape of a dove comes down toward the altar between four 
little naked angels, who each bear a book — presumably 
one of the four Gospels. On either side, seated in a 
circle made of clouds, are the saints and the prophets ; 
on the left Saint John the Baptist talks with Adam, who 
has crossed his legs and holds his knee with his hands, in 
naturalistic listening. Near them. Saint John the Evan- 
gelist is writing, perhaps on the Apocalypse, and smiles 
at his work. Toward him turns King David with his 
harp. Further on. Saint Stephen, a deacon, addresses 



240 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

one of the ancient Sibyls (whom one hardly distinguishes) 
and points to her and her successors below. On the right- 
hand side of the clouds which carry the Saviour, Saint 
Paul leans upon his sword, Saint James meditates, Moses 
holds upon his knees the tables of the law, Saint Lawrence 
a palm-branch, and between them is Saint George, 
helmeted and cuirassed in antique elegance, a patron 
of Liguria, whence Julius the Second came. The name 
of the "Dispute" is a modern one, and the meaning, of 
course, is just the contrary, as has been wisely re- 
marked many times ; it is not a dispute, but a concur- 
rence and agreement, and one of the great historical 
successes, crowning a long series of efforts by generations 
of painters in the many directions which have made 
modern art. 




HE AGONY IN THE GARDEN. (Ferrari) 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE AGONY IN THE GARDEN. THE BETRAYAL. CHRIST 
BEFORE CAIAPHAS. JUDAS RECEIVES HIS PAY. THE 
REPENTANCE OF JUDAS. 

Matthew, Mark, and Luke describe the Lord's sorrow 
and His praying three times and thrice returning to His 
sleeping disciples. Saint Luke tells us of the sustaining 
angel. We have from each and all the simile of the cup — 
which, indulged in by artists, has destroyed sometimes the 
very meaning of the story depicted. The subject began 
to be represented when art allowed, or was directed into, 
symbolical statements, which are often misleading — for 
instance, some of the South Sea Christians whom I knew 
believed that when the sword pierced the Virgin's heart 
her suffering was physical. 

Here is the picture by Gaudenzio Ferrari. At once 
we have every combination of error — the sleeping disciples 
almost touching the Lord, and He adoring His own cup, 
instituted only just before. Could anything be more 
impossibly wrong, and both artistically and religiously 
foolish ? Perhaps some devotee may have suggested it, 
for Gaudenzio elsewhere is more reasonable. Let us 
turn to him for a moment ; he certainly deserves notice, 
and I regret that we shall so rarely use him in our story, 
because his main charm lies in single representations of 
the Madonna and Child, and also in ideal subjects, which 

243 



244 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

are splendidly, if somewhat conventionally, treated ; per- 
haps by no fault of his, but of the time and place. 

We must always remember that the creator of religious 
subjects, even to this moment, is not the free artist of 
sentiment and feeling that we should wish. He is a form 
of merchant, and on some sides a degraded one, as we 
see all about us in what the French call "bondieuseries.'* 
But Ferrari is one of the victims of Leonardo, partly 
through the glory and light of that great man. It is largely 
through others that Leonardo's manifestation takes 
place. We all feel him and are told of him — but only a 
iew phases of him we know, and in many more we can 
scarcely believe. 

Gaudenzio at the end, more than others (Luini for 
instance), escaped into what I take to be the real North 
Italian nature. Of course he himself as a unit had 
personal gifts. He had the faculty of vision, and a 
sense of the moving line, not the outline of the "linists," 
as ours of to-day, but that which the sculptor has, who 
grasps the sense of form not seen and brings the impres- 
sion of the next movement into the present immobility. 
The gift is extremely rare — a little more and our Gau- 
denzio would have been a great genius. 

He also had religious feeling, and his poetic sentiment 
was influenced by the Franciscan sweetness. Thus, in 
his attempts or successes in the history of our Lord or 
in any other works, he wished to give the impression of a 
reality both divine and human and express his dreams in 
terms of beauty. It may be that we do not recognize 
sufficiently in his later works the Northern influence. 
Not only was some of it latent in that Northwest of Italy, 
but artists possessed the actual knowledge of Germanic 



THE AGONY IN THE GARDEN 245 

art, through Diirer and others. This may be imaginary 
as to Ferrari, but so lovely and pious, and high-minded a 
nature cannot be left out of the illustrators of the story. 

Strangely enough, we shall be able to approve a most 
modern treatment of this subject in the middle of the last 
century, when all feeling seemed gone from any religious 
paintings. 

Delacroix gives us this episode of the Passion ; it is 
imperfect, perhaps, and certainly almost invisible, in the 
Church of Saint Sulpice. It is despised and rejected by 
the great patrons and critics, but if I remember it accu- 
rately, it is wonderful in giving the loneliness of abandon- 
ment} 

The double sympathy of Delacroix for form and also 
for feeling led him at times to religious subjects, and he 
alone in our day seems to have been fitted from our point 
of view for the continuation of the development of art 
in sympathy with the memories of the Church. Strange 
as it may seem to those of us whose habit is to divide 
contradictions in humanity as they do in school books, 
this reader and admirer of Voltaire, this quiet, rather 
cold gentleman remained, during all his life in France, in 
touch with religious story and feeling. Indeed one whole 
year of his more than busy life was devoted to religious 
subjects — studied all for himself — hence we have some 
sketches for the Passion, and one dark, dismal, and prob- 
ably neglected picture in a distant Paris church. That 
last, although new in expression and composition {i.e. plac- 
ing of figures) is the least valuable. As happened with 
Rembrandt, for instance, and must happen with any 
genius struggling in poverty or straitened means, the 

1 Owing to its position, this cannot be photographed. 



246 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

sketches or studies seem greater than the finished works, 
immensely important as these are. It is a law of human 
nature, nof recognized or insisted on by dealers. The 
drawings or half-paintings of the life of Christ by Dela- 
croix are but little known (and also have been badly 
reproduced) because hidden away. 

In each a novelty occurs, or rather forces itself in, 
though often the great man tried to meet the conventional 
composer halfway, as he had friends in that camp and 
disliked to shock them. The figures of Christ fainting 
from sheer emotion are probably the finest ever sug- 
gested ; they alone, in the history of art, express the 
solitary distress of the prophetic vision, and the others of 
Pilate and the courts have also the same religious insight. 

Twice at the extremities of the art of painting has 
the turning point of the Divine Story been given in ade- 
quate telling. In the Arena Chapel at Padua, Giotto, 
the "Father of Painting," tells the story as he saw it, 
from experience of life, and with the power and imagina- 
tion which we call genius, the '' dedoublement'' of a 
noble or exceptional mind. 

There are other more or less noble representations, 
because they are by noble artists. Fra Angelico gives one, 
but it is too intentional — "z'om/m" as the French say; 
spiritual feeling certainly moved the painter, and it is a 
religious work of art (indeed that is its defect as a 
story) ; and Duccio tells us perhaps better, because he 
is less mystic and deep. But Giotto is there — and 
makes us see how Our Lord is the only one who is not 
anxious ; how He accepts Judas's embrace or serpent coil 
(both meant for capture and for possible self-protection), 




THE BETRAYAL OF CHRIST. (Giotto) 



THE BETRAYAL 249 

and how the Victim bends to the traitor, with calm and 
searching eye. [It has been said, according to a tradition 
accentuated by some passage in a revelation to Saint 
Bridget, that Judas was much smaller, so that the Captive 
bent toward him willingly.] 

The rabble around them is uneasy, as in any capture 
of a dangerous criminal. The high priest is all concern ; 
what to-day would be a policeman blunders in stupidly. 
A blast from a horn announces the capture to those out- 
side. 

The great Van Dyck is not sufficiently known. Now 
that there are more travellers for Spain, and we can 
see other great Van Dycks here, our attention may be 
drawn to the wonderful blossoming of the new art in 
him, with the sentiment, the touching sentiment, of the 
old. Little of that shall we see after him, fine as some 
painters may be, although contemporary Spain may have 
something, as always, of appeal to the heart. 

In Van Dyck's Betrayal there is a great rush of lines 
and of the people who make them. It is as if the lacing 
of ropes thrown over our Lord were also repeated in the 
crowd of captors, all anxious to secure the Unresisting 
One. Judas, of whose face we see little, ends the long 
serpentine uphill movement. 

He steps on the Saviour's cloak, again in a sweep of 
lines, as if to prevent Him from moving or slipping away. 
The practical old man concealed behind the traitor has 
his rope ready in case of blunder, but that is unnecessary. 

Over the Lord's head swings the rope. His arm and 
shoulder are clutched, partly in fear, by another captor. 
Meanwhile the Captured One allows His hand to be taken 
by the traitor. It lies gently in that tentative grasp, 



250 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

and the Lord looks down at him with the gentleness al- 
most of indifference, yet as if aware of the awful crime. 
"Was ever grief like mine ?" says the pale face, the only 
peaceful spot, for all, even the trees and moon and the 
lighted torches are wild with the rush and turmoil. "On 
the edge of the picture is the armed leader, with his direct- 
ing hand. In the lower edge, out of the main subject, we 
have the episode of Peter and Malchus, properly subor- 
dinated, as if necessary to the record but not to the 
drama. 

Caiaphas was he who gave counsel to the Jews that it 
was expedient that one man should die for the people. 
On this account Dante has placed him in hell. 

In Giotto's story this is the first tribunal pictured, 
that most impressive and evil one. Two function- 
aries occupy the seat of Justice. This doubtless arose 
from Saint Luke's speaking of Annas and Caiaphas being 
high priests conjointly, and is seen as early as the 
eleventh century, on the doors of the Cathedral of Bona- 
venture. 

Giotto has chosen the moment when Caiaphas has 
adjured Christ, by the living God, to say whether He 
be the Son of God, to which Jesus answered in the affirm- 
ative. Caiaphas is seen tearing open his robe, showing 
his bare and hairy breast, his lower lip pulled up tight, 
expressing contempt and superiority, saying, "He hath 
spoken blasphemy, what further need have we of wit- 
nesses ?" Annas has long hair upon, his shoulders, and 
extends a hand of command. The order goes forth to 
take the prisoner away — an officer hastens to obey. 
Behind the Christ another officer,' with the exact ex- 




THE BETR.A.YAL OF CHRIST. (Van Dyck) 



CHRIST BEFORE CAIAPHAS 253 

presslon that we know in the official guardian of the 
peace, raises a hand to strike Him, a motive repeated in 
various pictures, before and after. Two ugly, glaring 
heads behind are the witnesses who have testified 
falsely ; one or two of the younger men are disturbed 
by the evident evil intention of the magistrates, and 
place a hand on the soldiers to prevent any hurried 
violence. Within these narrow limits the story of a 
charge before a magistrate is told, with the addition 
of the theatrical gesture of the high priest. Mean- 
while, the Christ stands in thought; He waits, and 
His eye turns upon the ugly face of one of the witnesses. 
Already a sense of the atrocity of the calumny has 
touched Him, but He waits ; His hands are tied be- 
fore Him. 

In the fresco of the same subject by Gaudenzio Fer- 
rari His hands are tied behind Him ; He is all the more 
defenceless when the servant of the high priest, a fierce, 
brutal, turbaned creature, strikes Him violently ; behind 
Him another ugly being has hold of Him ; He smiles gently 
and kindly at the man who is striking Him, and His 
bound arms give still more the feeling that He accepts 
the cruelty ; the soldiers stand with natural indifference, 
for they think it is a Jewish quarrel into which they 
need not enter. Caiaphas sits on high arguing, with 
crooked fingers which resemble the wicked horns of a devil- 
ish soul. The beautiful background is filled with flower- 
ing plants, and above hangs a triple canopy of oriental 
suggestion. 

Many painters show us the mocking of Our Lord 
before Caiaphas. Giotto seats the Christ, who again 
patiently waits. His hands now are free to receive the 



254 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

mockery of a sceptre ; the same insolent brute pulls 
His hair, with a look of triumph ; some youngster behind 
strikes Him, another boy pulls His hair, another merely 
puts out a tongue of contempt, a cowardly creature 
kneels in derision before Him, and behind them all comes 
a negro, with a stick ready to strike. In the same room 
the Roman asks the wrangling Pharisees, "What manner 
of man is this ?" 

The only representation of Judas receiving his pay 
of which I know is by Giotto in the Arena Chapel. 

The priests of the temple, venerable bearded persons, 
confer with Judas, who receives a bag of silver. Two 
of these Levites reason about the matter, as if saying, 
"There is the man who engages to do it" — one points 
with reversed thumb. The older priest has just placed 
the bag in Judas's hand, and lifts his own, with the 
necessary recommendation to be sure, to take precau- 
tions, and he promises, for "then entered Satan into 
Judas, surnamed Iscariot, being of the number of the 
Twelve," and we see Satan entering — an awful black 
shape with a claw for hand, and a grin of possession on 
his beaked and bearded shadow of a face, strangely carica- 
turing some Jewish original, so that we feel that even if 
visible, it might still be a shadow. His one leg seen is 
the long thin stick of the traditional Devil's leg of bird 
or goat. 

Judas is transfigured ; he gazes into the face of the 
priest, with eyes and lips intent both to know and to 
show that he understands it is a bargain ; consciousness of 
cleverness spreads all over the countenance of the man 
who has found his place. 




THE PAYMENT OF JUDAS. (Giotto) 



THE REPENTANCE OF JUDAS 257 

The repentance and death of Judas occurred ap- 
parently while our Lord was being led from the palace of 
Caiaphas to that of Pontius Pilate. Saint Matthew 
alone says that Judas, when he saw that Christ was 
condemned, "repented himself, and brought again the 
thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders, saying, 
* I have sinned in that I have betrayed innocent blood.' 
And they said, 'What is that to us ? See thou to that.' 
And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and 
departed, and went and hanged himself." 

In ancient ivories he hangs by a rope to which he 
puts his hand, a manner of saying that it was his own 
act. On the Bonaventure doors the indignation of the 
artist has put Satan upon the shoulders of the traitor, 
as if to weigh both soul and body down. 

In his youth Rembrandt painted Judas kneeling 
in the temple at the feet of the priests, with hands 
clasped in pain, and speaking with closed and blinking 
eyes, through which, however, he sees spread out upon 
the floor the thirty pieces of silver cast down by him ; 
the clergy standing above him are indignant at this 
additional annoyance. The high priest looks stiffly 
indignant at the injustice that allows such trouble when 
all had been settled ; his hand takes hold of a curtain which 
half conceals the sacred books ; another, seated, turns 
away in contemptuous wrath, reversing his hand ; scholars, 
farther away, rise from their desks looking on curiously 
at these insolent priests seen in the distance, and are just a 
little disturbed by an incident which they scarcely under- 
stand. The painting is an early one, and consequently 
hard, lacking the consummate rendering of experience 
in life, but it has all been seen, and these are records of 



2S8 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

the synagogue. We notice that by the very fact that we 
do not quite understand them ; the synagogue is not to 
us habitual, but it is to Rembrandt, who moves at ease 
in it, and has through all his work repeated the Bible, 
in and out, both Old and New Testament, as no one 
but himself has done or could do. 



CHAPTER XIV 

CHRIST BEFORE PILATE. THE DENIAL OF PETER. CHRIST 
PRESENTED TO THE PEOPLE. PILATE WASHES HIS 
HANDS. THE FLAGELLATION. ECCE HOMO 

"When the morning was come, all the chief priests and 
elders of the people took counsel against Jesus to put him 
to death, and when they had bound him they led him 
away and delivered him to Pontius Pilate, the governor." 

Before Caiaphas Christ had been charged with blas- 
phemy; before Pilate, and subsequently before Herod, with 
treason to Csesar, in styling Himself a king. The Jews, 
therefore, had no power to put Him to death without the 
order of the governor, for within the Paschal week it was 
forbidden by their customs. 

Jesus stood before the governor, and the governor 
asked Him, saying, "Art thou the King of the Jews .^" and 
Jesus said unto him, "Thou sayest." Glad to get rid 
of Him, and learning that He was a Galilean, they sent 
Him to Herod. 

Christ has been brought before Pilate in the painting 
of Gaudenzio Ferrari ; He stands patiently waiting. His 
hands tied behind Him. Pilate wears rich clothing and 
heavy fur; he inquires with disdain as to the charge 
against the prisoner. The governor has come outside of 
a palace, upon which is written in Latin that it is his, 
because, on our Lord's being first brought, the Jews 
refused to enter lest they should be defiled ; therefore 



26o THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

to humour them Pilate went out to them, that they 
might eat the Passover. One of the soldiers who has 
brought the Christ tells the story, with lifted hand, and 
an ugly Jew watches to see how it will be taken. The 
scene is almost modern in its realism ; we are far from 
the religious rendering of Duccio or Fra Angelico. 

It may be well to notice that the chief priests who speak 
to Pilate, and of whom he says to the Christ, "Thine own 
nation and the chief priests have delivered thee unto me," 
are Sadducees. They were apparently the conservative 
party, and were said to be able to persuade the rich 
that the populace was subservient to them. It was not 
merely the Pharisees who wished the death of the Lord, 
it was also the men who were superior to those narrow 
opponents of a wider and more generous life. That they 
were of aristocratic, ecclesiastical origin is marked by 
their having been named after the Zadok who anointed 
Solomon. Ezekiel speaks of the sons of Zadok, and ex- 
pressly describes them as the special priestly family, 
to the exclusion of other Levites ; "the priests that are 
sanctified of the sons of Zadok ; which have kept my 
charge, which went not astray when the children of Israel 
went astray." Hence the sons of Zadok were singled 
out as the priestly line from the captivity, and they were 
still the priestly party in apostolic times. To us, usually, 
they represent the unbeliever. It has been supposed 
that their views were coloured by the influence of Greek 
thought — they are said to have held that there was no 
resurrection. We have no remains of their literature, 
but perhaps their sacerdotal pride is contained in the book 
of Ecclesiasticus. We are therefore in the presence of 
intellectual and free-minded opponents of the Lord, and 




iilL ijLXlAL OF PETER. (Re.mbraxdi 



THE DENIAL OF PETER 263 

in the picture by Giotto we recognize, however cruel 
their look, the presence of a relatively superior and cold 
opposition, — that of the governing mind. 

Then comes, in most dramatic succession, the contrast 
of Peter's denial. Rembrandt has painted it twice. 
In one picture the story is told by three or four personages 
— the maid servant, a couple of soldiers and Peter. 
The maid, the usual person of no particular importance, 
lifts a hand of remonstrance, and points to the Christ, 
saying, "Art not thou also one of this man's disciples" ? 
The light coming from her candle (not from the fire at 
which they warm themselves) falls upon Peter's cloak 
wrapped around him, "for it was cold," and on his troubled 
and doubtful face ; he has not spoken yet, he is merely 
surprised, and one hand is ready to make some gesture 
putting aside the question ; nearer to us, and watching 
the scene sits a soldier in armour, his helmet on his knee ; 
he holds an enormous flagon, one hand is around the neck 
ready to put it to his mouth, but he stops and grins at the 
confusion of the disciple. His sense of enjoyment of the 
discomfiture of Peter contrasts with the expression of 
another soldier who thrusts out lips of disdain — the rest 
is lost in the dark. 

Later Rembrandt has told us of the contrite Peter In 
an unfinished etching which gives in a mysterious way 
Peter kneeling ; he leans on his staff, holding one of the 
keys of heaven, the other hand holds out another key. 
He looks at it with an indescribable expression of doubt 
and reminiscence. 

Tintoretto's " Christ Before Pilate " in the Scuola di 
San Rocco has been dignified with much fine writing by Mr. 
Ruskin, and all visitors to Venice know what he thought 



264 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

about it. Not even the most florid praise can hurt this, 
one of the wonderful paintings of the world. It is not 
necessary to know the story ; if ever there was a portrait 
of a just man before some obscure power, here it is. Out 
of the gloom the figure of Pilate appears, if you wish to 
see it, just enough to tell the story. That judge may well 
forget how many similar cases he has dismissed, or turned 
over to the law, or to a clamouring mob of accusers. 

The etching by Rembrandt of "Christ Presented to 
the People " is perhaps more important than his painting. 
Apart from the subject, the picture he gives is the pic- 
ture of a crowd, a furious crowd. Not even the photo- 
graph of to-day is nearer to the rendering of a multitude. 
There are not many figures, one can easily count them — ■ 
there are not many more than a dozen — and yet it is a 
great, great crowd. That is the effect of genius, and 
that faculty of sight of the subject, of creating an image 
all made, for which we ought again to use the word 
imagination. 

Also there is a trick or method of the painter or 
designer, which we saw in Raphael's Heliodorus, and in the 
Heliodorus of Delacroix, and may see in another of the 
latter's works, the "Massacre of Scio." It is the massing 
of the multitude outside the edge of the picture — that 
is to say, beyond what we directly behold. This sense 
that we are not able to see them all gives the psychological 
impression of a crowd, and some men have instinctively 
noticed this visionary fact and made use of it. 

In the Rembrandt, the sense of a surging sea of people 
pouring through some distant archway fills our imagina- 
tion. Little seen, they yet are there. Two figures, one 
far back in the gloom, and the other nearer, keep back 



CHRIST PRESENTED TO THE PEOPLE 265 

by gesture the unseen mass. "Patience," they seem to 
say, — "we shall soon have Him." Then close before 
Pilate we have the Pharisees, the believers, the real fanat- 
ics. Behold the awfully earnest face of the kneeling 
Jew, with the look that it is impossible to have "no" 
for answer. To that question the delicate hands of 
Pilate — an oriental Pontius Pilate — answer in a gesture. 
The guards are guards — they are already annoyed by 
the presence of these Jews, and one or two already 
look at the prisoner with an eye of doubt. From Him 
spreads the light. His face alone is not disturbed ; it 
is even absorbed in prayer — prayer to the Father — 
prayer for them who thirst for His life. 

With the washing of his hands, Pilate passes away 
into relative obscurity. Troubles with the Jews had 
followed his last experiences ; he must have been happy 
to escape from the responsibilities of ruling over a people 
he never understood, and would be glad to forget. 

In Anatole France's story of the Procurator of Judaea, 
Pilate is one of two old friends who meet long after their 
sojourn in Palestine. They sit far into the night at table 
and recall this or that. The other Roman, formerly an 
official, speaks well of the Jews, describing the beauty of 
the women of Syria and of one especially who was very 
lovely and who joined certain men and women who 
followed a young Galilean, a worker of miracles. He was 
called Jesus ; he came from Nazareth and was put to 
death for a crime which the Roman cannot recall. He 
asks Pontius if he recollects that man, and Pilate frowns 
in silence, hunting in his memory, and says at last, "Jesus, 
— Jesus of Nazareth — I do not remember." 



266 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

In his later or "golden" manner Rembrandt has given 
us "Pilate Washing his Hands," in a painting formerly 
in the Kahn and now in the Altman collection. Pilate, in a 
rich semi-oriental dress, sits out of doors, in a sort of loggia, 
holding out his hands, over which a beautiful boy pours 
water from a golden ewer. Behind Pilate stands some 
priest or Jewish official, apparently commending the 
course taken by him, and beyond a wall we see the hel- 
meted heads and the spears of a group of Roman soldiers. 
Pilate has a mild and dreamy face, and appears to be 
half indifferently fulfilling an accustomed rite. If the 
picture did not inspire France's story, it seems like a 
foreshadowing of his idea, besides being in itself most 
beautiful and full of imagination. 

"Then released he Barabbas unto them, and when he 
had scourged Jesus, he delivered him to be crucified." 

With Pilate the flagellation was a proposition of 
satisfaction to the Jews, thus : "I will therefore chastise 
him and release him." The commentators are not clear 
whether scourging was the usual prelude to the Roman 
death upon the cross, as beating often is in Chinese 
executions, but there are Roman stories of sufferers who 
perished under the infliction. Tradition has represented 
Christ attached to a pillar or column, perhaps because of 
the Roman habit. But another tradition, not accepted 
by artists, placed Him prostrate on the ground, according 
to Levitical law and to fulfil a passage in the Psalms, 
"The plowers plowed upon my back." Again, some 
have thought that Pilate would not have permitted 
any excess, but that the Jews bribed the Roman soldiers 
to treat their victim with unusual cruelty. However, 



CHRIST BEFORE PILATE 267 

the column has remained, hence the "Christ of the 
Column." In some early cases His face is turned from 
us or the column is interposed, but in the few final rep- 
resentations the reverse is the case, because it is more 
beautiful and reverent. 

Rembrandt has given us the preparations for the 
flagellation : Christ stands by the column, not clearly 
seen ; one of the torturers pulls His arms, which are 
fastened together, upward over a pulley ; another arranges 
the ends of a chain around His ankles and fits apparently 
at the same time the other end of the long rope so that the 
Victim becomes bound in all directions. Meanwhile 
the Christ stands firm. His legs apart ; He is stripped to the 
waist and His body begins to yield to the strain ; already 
His face indicates the beginning of suffering, however 
patient He may be ; He sees with half-closed eyes the 
movement of the executioner pulling down the rope. 

Like all the great Rembrandts, it is the vision of a 
real scene ; whether Rembrandt ever did see it may be a 
question, cruelty to the punished not being yet aban- 
doned. In the Italian or Spanish renderings, or in any 
others of the Middle Ages where the subject represents 
a form of cruelty, the painter may give us what he has 
seen, for we know that the law and its practices allowed 
things which appear monstrous to us. One feels this 
often as a side issue in mediseval Italian memoranda of 
actual facts, and it is not so long ago that in the England 
of Christianity and justice similar things might have been 
seen, attended by still more cruelty ; one need only read 
the terms of the punishment of the Catholics or of the 
followers of Charles Stuart. 

In Gaudenzio Ferrari's picture the column is one of 



268 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

many that support the arches of a loggia, delicate and 
dainty. The Christ is fastened by His arms, which are 
tied behind His back, to the base of one of them. He 
looks upward in patience, and receives the stripes of the 
two executioners, one an ugly creature triumphant over 
the weaker being, and the other a mere machine repeating 
blows in a mechanical way. The charm of the picture 
lies, besides the points of art, in the vision of the Christ 
which seems to cover all the space and appeals to us, 
without our thinking of the story, as a victim, a martyr. 
The sense of injustice pours out from it. Far back, a 
figure looking like a woman, but probably some superior 
dressed in an extreme oriental manner, holds a rod and 
watches the scene. It may be Pilate, though it seems 
not sufficiently prominent or important. 

In Rubens's picture of the Flagellation in the Domin- 
ican Church at Antwerp he has turned the Saviour's 
back to us on account of the lines of the composition 
and also for the question of the drama. It is a terrible 
representation of the scene. 

When our Lord had been scourged the Roman sol- 
diers took Him into the common hall and stripped 
Him and put on Him a scarlet robe and plaited a 
crown of thorns and put it on His head and placed a 
reed in His right hand (His hands were tied) as a manner 
of sceptre, and they bowed the knee before Him and 
mocked Him, saying, "Hail, King of the Jews !" Then, 
as a manner of revenge upon their own false homage, 
they spat upon Him and took a reed and smote Him on 
the head. 

When Pilate considered that Christ's sufferings were 



ECCE HOMO 269 

enough to satisfy the Jews, he left the Prsetorlum and said 
to them, "I bring him to you." Then he made Jesus 
come forth wearing the crown of thorns and the purple 
robe, and Pilate said, "Behold the man!" In every 
language the words "Behold the Man " (in Latin "Ecce 
Homo ") remain as the type of all that is sorrowful and 
touching, not only in the story of our Lord, but for all 
human beings who have passed through the Via Dolorosa. 

The Ecce Homo has given to the painters a subject 
covering all the personal feeling and interest apart 
from doctrine which began to flood the human mind. 
The purely religious feeling, of course, continued and 
was probably marked in the givers of the paintings, but 
the subject by itself, the suffering of the just, in its sin- 
gular unity was sufficient for the deepest feelings of the 
artist. 

In Italy the Ecce Homo appeared first at the finest 
moment of art, and Ferrari has painted it at Milan in the 
Church of the Madonna delle Grazie. The Lord stands 
at an opening of the railing, and two indifferent attend- 
ants, evidently not enemies, but soldiers or officials, 
dressed in the Germanic manner, pull off the cloak so 
that He may be better seen. A rope hangs around the 
neck of the Christ and down to His feet ; His hands are 
not tied, but crossed on His breast and He holds the reed 
sceptre. He looks down in lassitude. 

The Ecce Homo by Correggio in the National Gallery 
of London is perhaps the greatest of all. The scene is 
imaginary, for the fainting Mother is not in the story, but 
she adds to the meaning, by supplying a representative of 
our own pity, carried out in the ideal of womanhood, whose 
name for centuries has lifted woman from abasement or 



270 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

intellectual contempt by placing before the minds of men 
the infinite capacity for sympathy and help which belongs 
and has belonged in every form of life to woman. Here 
it is sublimated. The Christ's head is what we might 
expect from the master of expression and sweetness, 
who was also a great student and draughtsman, a magi- 
cian as to light and especially a composer, a man working 
within the frame, and thus within the problem set before 
painters when they attempt to solve the mysteries of 
light and shade. 

The expression is difficult to define. If it were other- 
wise, the art of painting would not exist, but one may say 
in an attempt at definition — or, rather, suggestion of 
definition — that the Christ is pitying the creatures who 
force upon Him this agony, A soldier looks at Him 
with the usual curious momentary derision of the official ; 
on the other side a figure who may be Pilate or some 
other judicial personage off^ers Our Lord to the multitude. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE MAN OF SORROWS. THE PASSION OF CHRIST 

Not even guards or cruel fanatics attend the Saviour 
after His flagellation. 

The painting by Velasquez is pure invention, I take 
it, but the Spanish feeling fills the work. There is no 
making out of the Victim a weakling. His body, bent 
over and exposed to the waist, is of the healthiest and 
cleanest, and on it lines of blood tell the story of the 
brutality of the last moments, though, as we know by 
the story, the Roman governor thought that the accused 
might escape further punishment. What at bottom did 
it matter ^ He could not have believed in the charges. 
It was as it is to-day when we attempt to escape from 
taking any real share in questions which can be avoided. 
Velasquez comforts us with a little child — a donor's 
child attended by its guardian angel — who kneels in 
adoring reverence. The ray of light which blesses the 
little kneeling figure seems to us, in our habit of thought, 
a spiritual act. 

In the Man of Sorrows, Diirer has given us an image 
of Christ which both tells the story and appeals to our 
pity. In a certain way the seated figure sums up the 
entire Passion ; His feet and His hands are pierced, 
therefore it is not exactly the Christ waiting for His 
Crucifixion, as we see in that most touching painting 
of Velasquez of which we have just spoken, where, by great 
271 



272 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

good fortune and mere chance, a little child appears to 
pity the Saviour — a detail entirely contradictory in 
one sense, but deeply true as a matter of feeling. It is 
a manner of carrying out the question of pity, which 
in the history of art began to mean more and more in the 
figures used to specify religious requirements, while be- 
fore that moment the doctrinal side of the representa- 
tions must have been the main one. 

Let us consider the type of what shall be the Christ 
of Pity : Jesus naked, worn-out, is seated on some rock 
or mound ; His hands and feet are tied ; a crown of thorns 
tears His forehead, and His blood, already largely shed, 
pours down slowly ; He is waiting, and sadness fills the 
half-closed eyes. There are a number of these repre- 
sentations made in the innocence of their hearts by the 
early artists, or those of whom we think as early artists — 
for already they have come to the end of expression 
through story, and therefore to the extreme limit of art. 
On the Cross Christ is dying, and has already lost the 
capacity for suffering, but while waiting for the Cross 
He thinks and He suffers ; hence, it was necessary to 
express the deepest moral grief joined to an extraordinary 
exaggeration of physical suffering. As we noticed, the 
simplicity of soul in these men allowed them to attempt 
what no one had ever dared — to represent the agony of 
a God. To show a god worn-out, even covered with a 
sweat of blood, would have been beyond the grasp of 
the greatest of the Greeks ; nor would they have felt 
sympathy with pain ; their heroic understanding of life 
took away such sympathy. For them suffering was ser- 
vile, because it destroyed the balance of body and of soul ; 
the order was therefore that it was not to be made eternal 



THE MAN OF SORROWS 275 

through art. Pity, force, serenity are what should be 
offered to the contemplation of man. Thus the work 
of art becomes kindly and offers that model of perfection 
to which man must tend. The young man Is told by 
these Greek heroes, "Be strong, and like us control 
your life" ; a great and noble lesson, which later, with the 
Renaissance, has made man hesitate. Michael Angelo 
was a Christian, and very deeply so, but he too has 
not dared to give to his Christ the look of a sufferer; 
Michael, like the Greek, teaches us to despise suffering, 
and so the Christ Is represented as a hero who has a con- 
tempt for death. However, do not let us mistake the 
feelings of those older artists ; they do not mean to say 
that suffering was the teaching of the Gospel. What 
they wished to represent was not suffering, but love — 
the suffering of a God who should die for love — so one 
forgives the want of pity In some of the Imagery of that 
last moment of the Middle Ages. 

There Is a statue at Troyes, In France, among the most 
pathetic of all the works of these men. The crown of 
thorns has been so driven down upon the head of the 
Christ that It looks like a turban, hair and beard are 
heavy masses made stiff by hardened blood, but the eyes 
express astonished grief, as if the man in Christ is only 
just realizing the brutality of the sons of Adam, At 
the same time the head Is lifted straight, and tells the 
story of continuing to the end and accomplishing the Sac- 
rifice. 

Then appears another figure of the suffering Christ, 
which Is usually known under the name of "The Christ 
of Pity." It Is different, really, from the one we have 
spoken of, though resembling It at first. The Christ 



276 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

is sometimes placed against the Cross, and seems still to 
suffer, and yet He has gone through death ; His hands 
and feet, as with Albert Diirer, are pierced, and His 
side wounded ; sometimes He is half placed in the tomb. 
It is a manner of dream ; it was, in fact, probably a vision. 
We remember how Christ appeared in some such way to 
Saint Gregory the Great, at mass. It is not an old tradi- 
tion, and was not recognized even as late as the thirteenth 
century. A picture in the Church of the Holy Cross of 
Jerusalem at Rome may have given the beginning to all 
this tradition ; so said some early engravings, said to be 
copies of it. But strange to relate, the painting badly 
copied by the engraver was the work of a Byzantine 
artist, for a Greek monogram and inscription are upon it. 
It may be that this strange image, brought back from the 
East in the twelfth or thirteenth century, was important 
from its very strangeness, and in the end people believed 
that Pope Saint Gregory had it painted to represent his 
vision, which would add naturally to its importance. In 
those far-away times such images formed part of what 
may be called the ordinary business habit of religious 
men and women (besides appealing to sentiment) before 
the woodcut and the engraving came in and gave to big 
people and little ones what they had been wishing for, 
and what was a rarity before. The Christ was frequently 
supported by two angels, who held the body half out of 
the tomb, or else the Virgin and Saint John took their 
places, a favourite theme with Italian masters. It is the 
idea of the eternal Passion of Christ, the Passion which 
continues even after death ; the Christ of Pity became 
by degrees that marvel of sentiment which we have seen 
in the Italians, and in the masterpieces of John Bellini, 



THE MAN OF SORROWS 277 

where Saint John, with mouth half open, seems to give 
forth a faint note of pain, while the Virgin in anxious 
tenderness leans her face against that of her Son. This 
contemplation of the sufferings of Christ went into various 
details of this suffering ; some words of Saint Bernard 
(not really his) compare the Passion to a bleeding rose, 
and Saint Bonaventure describes how Christ, draped in 
His own blood, appeared as if wearing the pontifical 
purple. More and more the divine blood pours forth ; 
Saint Bridget, Saint Gertrude, and other saints see the 
blood run, and the artists so represented it, and thus the 
idea of suffering gives us a number of historical works 
wherein is exhalted this power of the blood of Christ. 
We shall have sacred edifices named from it, the Knights 
of the Round Table will look for it, at Bruges we shall 
have the Precious Blood, and so we shall be brought to 
such a strange, mystical composition as that of the 
"Fountain of Life," a painting in the Church of Pity at 
Oporto in Portugal. There the crucified Christ is between 
the Virgin and Saint John, and the foot of the Cross, 
instead of meeting the rock of Calvary, is plunged in a 
great basin from which blood pours and fills another lower 
one. Around it there are a number of persons, either givers 
of the mystical painting or holy believers of every kind. 
We cannot, in the quiet of our studies, follow this violent 
poetry of the mystical fountain, the strange work of 
artists wherein breathes the feverish pity of the end of the 
Middle Ages. 

We are so accustomed to speak of Our Lord's Passion 
that we do not wonder why the term came to be applied 
to the suffering of Christ, His acceptance of misery, 



278 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

pain, humiliation, of the meanness or weakness of His 
friends, of all that makes even ordinary life sad ; and then 
to His reign from the Cross. We know that at a certain 
moment in Italy the fervour of the monastic orders, called 
into life by the great saints whose names they bore, 
brought into play every form of appeal. Before this the 
outward expression is restrained or lost in the stress of the 
times. Then comes the rendering, in dramatic action, 
of the story. At first it seems strange that over twelve 
hundred years had to pass before a dramatic representa- 
tion was given, but we know what difficulties must have 
intervened before the theatre could become instructive 
and be welcomed as a religious expression. 

In the end it was universally accepted, and we have 
the mysteries, and the prolongation of more or less re- 
spectful versions of the story, even to our very day in 
the Bavarian Tyrol. It is well that this example remains, 
even if it is becoming somewhat commercial at this 
late instant. It shows us, by the concomitant life of 
people joining in a pictorial agreement with the Church, 
how the finer sides of the idea existed side by side with the 
more degrading tendencies that follow all attempts to 
amuse. The good Northern people may not have begun 
it, but they kept it up, and we may sympathize in the 
relief of the theatre after the too realistic life of earlier 
mediaeval effort. 

But we are going out of our way. Let us turn once 
more to Giotto, as the greatest of all those who represent the 
history of Our Lord. What he might have done, had he 
lived later, we cannot even surmise. No one has begin- 
nings from himself alone, and the little boy who drew 
in chalk for immortal fame had beginnings, as we shall see, 



THE PASSION OF CHRIST 279 

notwithstanding Leonardo, who declared, according to 
Vasari, that Giotto owed nothing to his forerunners. 

It is interesting to remember (as an example of what 
must have happened over and over since his time) that 
Giotto's memory was probably charged with stories 
depreciating the very monks and orders for whose 
glorified founders he gave to the world of his day and 
also to ours such beautiful records as make us even now 
converts and spedial believers in the graces of Saint 
Francis. For now we begin again to entertain that guest 
who comes to our mental door and knocks as the living 
man did centuries ago — as the Christ in Fra Angelico's 
picture called up the monks to know Him, 

In the Arena Chapel at Padua Giotto has given us 
the history of Christ directly, simply, as if stating for 
us what he knew. There is no gainsaying it — nothing 
can be better. Nobility of statement, sufficient accu- 
racy, soberness, and yet fulness of poetic vision. We 
can understand why the great architect Richardson 
should have spoken as he did to the writer of these 
pages, when he and Bishop Phillips Brooks walked around 
the chapel. Said Richardson, forced through the state- 
ment of fact by Giotto to express something of the feeling 
of which he was full : "And do you believe all this .? " For 
that was the proper effect and result of such a connected, 
pictured statement, or record, by a hand and eye certain 
of that record and its previous vision. 

(And then the Bishop told him that he believed, and 
followed with words I dare not quote because inexactness 
would be doubly wrong to the memory of two men worth 
remembering.) 

But realistic as Giotto Is, his real value, one beyond 



28o THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

his imitators and successors — one which explains the 
difference, and maintains him as the head and fountain 
and also the glory of Florentine developments — is this, 
that the double vision and thought are there. The sub- 
jects are no common happenings. That story you see 
must mean much. This is of course in his mind's view, 
and in his feeling of sentiment and propriety. But with 
this, and so completely interwoven with it as to be insep- 
arable, is his study of the real play of the human form, 
its meaning or intention, and this so much so that even 
to-day the modern man, with all his knowledge, is usually 
mute beside this beginner who is stuttering the first 
words of our language of painting. 

For a long time Giotto seemed to have sprung from the 
unknown, as Minerva from the brain of Jove Almighty, 
but now we know that Florence and Rome held men 
whose training, whose intentions, whose sentiments 
were already developed, and from whom the greater 
man derived impulse and training, and we return to our 
early appreciation of how Rome naturally received the 
ancient Roman language of art, preserved or encouraged 
in the more pagan or less Christian south. 

This should in no way derogate from our masters. 
We all derive from others — only there are many ways 
of inheriting. 

Leonardo said of Giotto : — 

" The painter shall certainly find his painting of little value if 
he picks for his foundation the painting of others; but if he makes 
use of natural things, he shall produce good fruit. As we see in the 
painters after the Romans, they continually imitated the one the 
other, and from age to age they handed down art to its final descent. 
After these came Giotto, the Florentine, who, born in solitary moun- 



THE PASSION OF CHRIST 281 

tains inhabited only by goats and such-like beasts, looking at the 
image of nature to make a similar art, began to draw on stones the 
actions of the goats of which he was keeper ; and so he began to make 
all the animals which he found in the country in such a way that this 
man after much study stepped ahead not only of the masters of his 
own age, but of all those of many past centuries. And that art de- 
clined because all imitated the previously made pictures, and so from 
century to century it went on declining until at length Thomas the 
Florentine, nicknamed Masaccio, showed by perfect work how those 
who had for guide something else than nature, which is the mistress 
of masters, labored in vain. Thus I wish to say of mathematical 
things, that those who only study authorities and not the works of 
nature are creatures and not sons of that nature, which is the mistress 
of all good makers. I do hate that greatest foolishness of those who 
blame the others who follow the law of nature and put aside those 
men who are the disciples of that nature. 

" And it was in truth a great marvel that from so rude and inapt 
an age Giotto should have had strength to elicit so much that the art 
of design, of which the men of those days had very little, if any, 
knov/ledge, was, by his means, effectually recalled into life. The birth 
of this great man took place in the hamlet of Vespignano, fourteen 
miles from the city of Florence, in the year 1276. His father's name 
was Bondone, a simple husbandman, who reared the child, to whom 
he had given the name of Giotto, with such decency as his condition 
permitted. When he was about ten years old, Bondone gave him a 
few sheep to watch, and with these he wandered about the vicinity — 
now here and now there. But, induced by nature herself to the arts 
of design, he was perpetually drawing on the stones, the earth, or the 
sand, some natural object that came before him, or some phantasy 
that presented itself to his thoughts. It chanced one day that the 
affairs of Cimabue took him from Florence to Vespignano, when he 
encountered the young Giotto, who, while his sheep fed around him, 
was occupied in drawing one of them from the life, with a stone 
slightly pointed, upon a smooth clean piece of rock, — and that with- 
out any teaching whatever but such as nature herself had imparted. 
Halting in astonishment, Cimabue inquired of the boy if he would 
accompany him to his home, and the child replied he would go will- 



282 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

ingly, if his father were content to permit it. In a short time, instructed 
by Cimabue and aided by nature, the boy not only equalled his mas- 
ter in his own manner, but became so good an imitator of nature, 
that he totally banished the rude Greek manner,^ restoring art to the 
better path adhered to in modern times, and introducing the custom 
of accurately drawing living persons from nature, which had not been 
used for more than two hundred years. Or, if some had attempted 
it, as said above, it was not by any means with the success of Giotto. 
Among the portraits by this artist, and which still remain, is one of 
his contemporary and intimate friend, Dante Alighieri." 

'What we now call Byzantine. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE CRUCIFIXION 

At the beginning of the third century one of the young 
slaves at the Palatine scratched upon a wall a joke or 
insult destined to become historical. His design was that 
of a crucifix with the head of an ass, toward which a man 
looked, and alongside was a Greek phrase meaning 
"Alexamenos adores his god." Here in this insult 
of the little pagan is the oldest form of the crucifix, and 
the old accusation of crime in adoring a god with the head 
of a beast. 

At first no material representation would easily occur, 
from many reasons, one being the non-necessity of ex- 
ternal manifestations to the spirit wrapped in God and 
holding Him in the heart. The symbolical images of 
mystical importance, the Good Shepherd, the Lamb, 
and so forth, left the idea of the Redemption in a glorified 
form, so there was no need of dwelling on the atrocious 
suffering of the Cross. At length, with the triumph of 
Christianity in politics and morals (as testified by the 
Labarum of Roman legions) the Cross appears crowned, 
to recall Constantine's vision and proclamation. Im- 
agery, as early as the beginning of the fourth century, 
adorned churches which we do not know with the eye, 
but which are described for us. Images gave the mean- 
ing ; aureoles surrounded the Cross ; the apostles were 
symbolized, and so the Dove came down with them as 
283 



284 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

doves ; the peacock was of oriental meaning, and the 
hart's searching for water brooks signified thirst for the 
water of life. 

But in course of time came the need of asseveration and 
the natural craving of the people for something more than 
signs. And so at Santa Sabina on the Aventine, in the 
sixth century, the Crucified appears, not in the exact 
meaning of replacing them, but taking the symbolical 
place of Diana and Juno, for the church was built on 
the foundations of these pagan temples. It is a frag- 
ment, a piece of a wooden door, barbarous and in- 
elegant. The Christ appears between the two thieves, 
He has the long hair of the Eastern Christian, and stands 
in the formal attitude of praying (orans) ; a narrow cinc- 
ture, as small as it can be, covers the middle of the body. 
The Crucifix is implied, not made out distinctly, by the 
attitude of the Christ and the bars of the architectural 
background ; the figures of the thieves are also "orantes," 
and therefore pray. This is symbolical, of course. The 
whole meaning of the Gospel tragedy on the crosses, as 
to the two thieves, is that of the choice of one and refusal 
of the other. 

All is yet indefinite and barbarous, and what Is ap- 
parent to us now was not so then, nor did the mind need it. 
So instead of the Crucified One, the mystic Lamb was put 
in His place in some examples. 

In 692 the assembled Greek bishops brought up the 
question of the symbolic Lamb as representing the cru- 
cified Saviour, and decreed that the image of Christ 
should be placed in the holy places. This is the text : 
"With the addition of the Precursor is painted the Lamb, 
symbol of Divine Grace, which signifies, according to the 



THE CRUCIFIXION 285 

Law, the true Lamb, Christ our God. Such ancient 
types, such allegories, transmitted to the Church we 
can honour as sketches (or attempts) at the reality, but 
we prefer the reality itself, which here gives the proof 
of the law. And so, that such perfection be expressed 
in pictures to the eyes of all, we order that instead of the 
Lamb, the Redeemer of the world, Christ, should be rep- 
resented in His human form." 

Nor could the most critical expression of to-day be 
more laudable. But already the Crucifixion had been 
portrayed. In the Syrian Codes of the monk Rabula, 
of the year 586, the scene of the Crucifixion is represented. 
It is often quoted in the history of the subject and some- 
times the date is doubted, because of the excellence of 
the rendering. Here we see the Christ dressed in a 
sleeveless tunic, the sun and the moon hanging over the 
Cross, the two thieves crucified on either hand, Longinus 
piercing the side of the Crucified, a soldier offering the 
sponge, and then the crowd of the pious women, the Virgin 
and Saint John, and the soldiers drawing lots for the 
garments of the Lord. The Virgin takes the antique way 
of covering the head with the mantle. An explanation 
of this dropping of the crucifix itself while all of the 
Crucifixion is given may be found in this ; Constantine 
chose the Cross as a symbol of victory, rather than as a 
memento of ignominious death. Over all the Oriental 
and Western world the crucifix gradually appeared with 
the Christ in all varieties of ornament, and with the 
image of the Lord are associated figures coming from what 
is known as the Acts of Pilate in the gospel of Nicodemus. 
In the end of the sixth century, or in the seventh, we come 
to the literal translation of the Gospels into art. Matthew 



286 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

and Luke had spoken of the sun darkening at the death 
of the Redeemer. So the artist pictured the sun and 
moon above the Cross ; the sun on the right has streaming 
rays, beautifully reminding us of the Apollo of earlier 
days ; the moon on the left is not full. Sometimes a female 
form, another reminiscence of the pagan world, bears the 
half-moon on her head. The Gospel tells us how Jesus 
spoke from the Cross to his Mother, saying: "Woman, 
behold thy son," and to the disciple: "Behold thy 
mother," and so art placed the Virgin and Saint John at 
the sides of the Cross. Gathered around the Virgin are 
the women of the story ; and later, Aquila Lamento has 
the crosses of the two thieves. Then it became neces- 
sary to distinguish the one from the other, and so the 
penitent began in the early images to look toward the 
Saviour and the impenitent to turn away. All these 
figures were naturally balanced, as coming from the sub- 
ject, which by its severity brought in the laws of sym- 
metry. Next to the Cross, sometimes less important than 
Mary and John, Longinus bearing his spear represents 
the Gentile converted, or else the executioner holds the 
sponge, which recalls the obstinacy of Judaism. The 
Christ at first is calm, and has no expression of suffering. 
He extends His arms, without an effort, horizontally, 
placing His feet on some little step without bending or 
displacing them. Thus He appears as superior to pain 
and triumphing over death. The Cross even comes to 
be a symbol of the tree of life, as we see very late in some 
works of Northern Europe. The legend of its origin 
appears in the gospel of Nicodemus. Father Adam spoke 
to his son Seth, telling him to relate to his sons, the patri- 
archs, and (because apocryphal) to the Prophets the things 



THE CRUCIFIXION 287 

he had heard from the Archangel Michael, when he went 
to the gates of Paradise to beg for oil from the tree of 
mercy, so that he might anoint the sick body of Father 
Adam. So Seth, coming to the Prophets, told them : 
"I prayed to the Lord before the gates of Paradise, when 
the Angel of the Lord, Michael, appeared to me and told 
me: 'God hath sent me to thee; thou canst not have 
the oil of the tree of pardon to help thy father Adam, 
because I cannot receive it until thirty-five hundred 
years have passed, at which time the Son of God, full of 
love, shall come down upon the earth and shall resuscitate 
the body of Adam and of the dead."' The legend goes 
on with the story of the Cross, more and more in detail, 
the one coming naturally from the other. Seth or Abra- 
ham plants or sows something — branch or seed — taken 
from the terrestrial paradise, and from that tree came to 
Aaron and Moses their magic staves. Then, cut down 
for the building of the Temple of Solomon, the tree was 
not used by the architects, but was part of a bridge over 
a river, erected by the Queen of Sheba, who, looking into 
the future, beheld and foretold the destiny of the 
world. Later, thrown into water where the flocks drank, 
it gave forth healing, and then, thrown out of the water 
(which had dried up), it became the Cross for the hanging 
of Jesus, and was hidden with the crosses of the two 
thieves after the death of the Redeemer. Helena, 
mother of Constantine, brought them back from Calvary 
(on which at that time was a temple of Venus), having 
learned from some ancient Hebrew the tradition of the 
place, but the three crosses could not be distinguished 
one from the other because the notice on the Saviour's had 
been torn from the tree, so the Bishop of Jerusalem pro- 



288 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

posed placing on the crosses three sick people, to recog- 
nize which was the sacred one by seeing which brought the 
good fortune of cure. 

Later than the seventh century, the Lord appears in 
full dress, as it were with a churchly meaning, in sacer- 
dotal kingliness. He also appears, according to what is 
told in some apocryphal gospel, stripped of His clothes 
and wrapped around with a linen cloth, and then another 
legend arose, also pictured, which told how the Virgin 
took off her veil to cover her Son. 

Just as art was beginning to accept any pious fable, 
the great struggle of the iconoclasts came in, and the 
crucifix and the crucifixion were especially the objects 
of persecution ; and, on the other hand, were made more 
holy by it. In the Carlovinglan period we see the ancient 
elements, but with other new ones. A penetrating idea 
pours through the material image, and human piety now 
bends the body of the Martyr, and hides with mantles the 
faces of sun and moon, as in the golden crucifix of Luther. 
A celestial hand passes down from heaven, extending 
a crown towards the head of the Son, and within it often 
comes the Dove, symbol of the Holy Spirit. At the foot 
of the Cross sometimes appears a horned snake, giving 
us the symbol of the struggle of the wicked one against 
man — of the Prince of Darkness agaiiist Christ. Christ 
bends His head towards the right of His shoulder, and more 
and more we feel that He is ready to give up His soul to 
death. The Virgin, as always, comes, and seems a pious 
and heart-broken visitor. In an ancient poem, once 
attributed to Gregory Nazianzen, the Virgin is asked 
not to weep, because all this fulfils prophecies, and 
then she regrets that she could not give her own life for 



THE CRUCIFIXION 289 

His. With the ninth century we see the images of the 
church and the synagogue on either side, the church 
receiving in a chalice the blood dropping from the wound 
of Jesus, the synagogue, on the contrary, moving away 
from the cross. Sometimes, below, Adam appears, the 
dead rise from hidden tombs or open the doors of mauso- 
leums, and we see the ancient guardians of the earth and 
ocean, figures of children and of crawling reptiles, with 
the image of Neptune riding on dolphins or monsters 
of the deep. 

Rome herself. In a barbaric diptych of Ravenna, 
appears in the form of the she-wolf suckling Romulus 
and Remus. She indicates the West, to which, according 
to a popular belief, the Christ turned as He breathed 
forth His life. In these images the Mother of Christ 
approaches the cross, pressing her head against her 
hand (as does Saint John also in balance), and extending 
another towards her Son ; she is calm, makes no cry, 
nor faints, as she is described as doing in false gospels. 
This manner of covering the face with hand or drapery 
was used to represent the great emotion which art felt 
without being able to do more. Angels come down 
towards the Christ, stretching out hands also, and, as 
we have said, the divine blood was received in chal- 
ices by the church, or sometimes by Father Adam ; even 
Joseph of Arimathea also collects it — he who was the 
guardian of the Holy Grail, as we know by the legend 
which tells us how the Knights of the Round Table 
learned of the death of the Redeemer. So through the 
Carlovingian period art stumbles along with great inten- 
tion, but a prey to barbarism, as is the outside world. 
Sometimes along the Cross the twelve apostles appear 



290 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

in the shape of doves ; below, hands are stretched out from 
the clouds, and at the foot of the rock upon which the 
Cross is placed pour out the four rivers of Eden, leading 
the sheep to the fold of Christ. This design in mosaic 
covers the apse of the basilica of Saint Clement in Rome. 
(We are now at the end of the eleventh century.) The 
base of the cross is represented in foliage ; birds sing upon 
it ; a serpent curls away, and over the great space of the 
wall of the church green branches of pure ornament spread 
forth. 

In curves and centres are images, flowers and birds 
again, and holy beings, so as to give the sense of the happy 
world of the new faith and salvation brought to the uni- 
verse in every way through the passion of the Redeemer. 

Bishop Paulinus of Nola described the design on the 
wall to please his life-long friend Sulpicius Severus, and also 
another friend, between 1410 and 143 1. The Bishop tells 
us how the base and the walls under the vaulting of the 
apse are decorated with "an illusion of mosaic — a joyful 
sight." Then he describes the painting, or, we should 
say, the mosaic. 

"In full sweetness of friendship streams the Trinity. 
In the form of the lamb stands Christ 
Whose father's voice thunders from heaven, 
And in the form of the Dove sweeps down the Holy Ghost. 
The cross gives the crown in pure victory, 
And of this crown the apostles are the crown, 
Whose image here is shown in a chorus of doves. 
The Holy Trinity becomes one in Christ, 
Who in himself unites the very essence of the Trinity. 
The cross and the lamb point him out as a holy sacrifice. 
And purple and palm show a rule and a triumph. 
Upon a rock he stands, himself the rock of the Church, 



THE CRUCIFIXION 291 

From which, high above us, are four pouring sources — 
The evangeHsts, Christ's Hving rivers." 

Elsewhere the good Bishop wrote : 

"Behold the unadorned cross in the holy halls of Christ; 
The precious gift is for the hard and courageous battle. 
Carry the cross upon thyself if thou wishest to obtain the crown." 

The crucifix, then, is the symbol and the teaching in 
these images, and in the confusion of war and religious 
development that is as should be expected. A moment 
came for the relief of the world when feeling began to have 
its place in the expression of the arts. The old fear of 
some of the saints (which still pursues certain parts of the 
entire Christian world), namely, that all worldly things 
are the work of the devil (which Is a putting aside of art), 
passed away in the need of comfort and In the surety 
that the death upon the Cross was a reproof of pride and 
also a cure. Then portraits of the Christ came from 
the East ; from ancient sources ; some said to have 
been painted by the apostles themselves. To those 
old images some miraculous virtue often belonged, much 
strengthened by many legends ; pilgrimages came to 
them and copies were made. Of course they are 
Byzantine; they came from the East, and the Ori- 
ental type of the Christ, often with a majestic and 
kindly expression, lasts long before the Western mind 
and eye. What wonder that in the poor chapel of Saint 
Damian the crucifix spoke to Saint Francis during his 
contemplation of the bitter sufferings of the Lord ! 
And so the Christ upon the Cross Is rightly given as sup- 
ported by Saint Francis In later art ; It Is the record of an 
earlier story. 



292 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

Murillo's painting shows Christ still nailed to the 
Cross by the left hand, but embraced and supported by 
Saint Francis ; the Lord is still suffering, but sweetly 
looking down upon His devoted lover and passing a gen- 
tle hand around the faithful saint's neck. 

Still in Siena is kept, in the house of Saint Catherine, 
the crucifix which spoke to her. With the Franciscan 
worship of the suffering Christ, the Christ of glory and 
power is put aside for the Christ of agony and pity. 
The body bends, the arms are drawn in pain, the head 
with half-shut eyes leans upon His shoulder; it is the 
Christ who died for the sins of man and whose sad image 
should convert the sinner. We realize to-day, through 
every form of historic belief or doubt or opposition, that 
a large part of what the entire world has of freedom and 
of kindness and of belief in fraternity dates from Saint 
Francis and the mystical love and passion spread by him, 
bringing the poor and the unhappy and the downtrodden, 
the victims of the great and the sufferers by war, to 
some place in the world, to some release from suffering 
through the oppression of others, or what we call the 
necessities of politics. We have not quite reached to the 
ideal of peaceful humanity, but no one is contradicted 
who speaks for it, and perhaps the world may be moving 
in that direction. Painting marks the beginning of the 
change in the world. In the Northern arts there are a 
few stories in sculpture, but they are not yet touched by 
the spirit of pity ; on the contrary, Italy shows both 
the feeling and the image. In the North it will be through 
other representations than the crucifix that we shall have 
a part of our story. Meanwhile we pass through some 
wonderful paintings of the early men. Occasionally 




CHRIST SUPPORTED BY SAINT FRANCIS. (Murillo) 



THE CRUCIFIXION 295 

in smaller details we find a few noble images, and coming 
at length to two beginners, we meet the brutal crucifixion 
of Nicholas the Pisan, where, however, the story is told 
with sympathy for the real scene. Christ is crucified 
according to a manner which in certain eyes, probably 
not those of the sculptor, had special meaning. The 
Cross is a sort of tree and its arms spread upward ; along 
them the arms of the Christ are nailed. The body 
bends ; the head sinks low upon the chest. Already the 
knowledge of the body which we shall inherit begins to 
show. Near by the Mother swoons. She is supported 
by some weeping women, and John weeps gently be- 
side her. Then we shall have the other great man 
Giotto in a representation which is a type of the passing 
from the Gothic to the modern idea. It has the elements 
of com-passion and tells the story with respect and with 
half doctrinal statement. It is partly real, partly ideal, 
and has a sense of not pretending to be anything more 
than this combination. But it is true so far as the 
figures are separately taken — the Mother faints, sup- 
ported by her usual attendants ; John is anxious about 
her, the Magdalen is at His feet, even now wiping them 
with her hair. The Christ is dead, His form has 
dropped, His knees have given way, His head is upon 
His breast. On one side the crowd of Jews and soldiers 
is to some extent kept back by Joseph of Arimathea, 
who points upward ; he has had a vision. Two 
soldiers, wearing the cuirass in the realistic way so differ- 
ent from the fittings of elegant art, are about to divide 
the seamless coat. Some one interferes, suggesting that 
they cast lots. Above in the sky the angels flutter in 
suffering. Some bit of theological meaning appears, 



296 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

for three of them gather the blood, two from the hands 
and one from the body. Their meaning is beautifully 
given, but not what he has done elsewhere. The head of 
the Saviour is of an extraordinary realism, but unfor- 
tunately, like most of the work, injured by restorations. 
Through it all, and the damage of centuries, one can 
recognize the power of appreciation and observation 
of the "restorer of painting." The Christ has gone 
through some awful moment. It is not necessary to 
know who He is, nor even that He has been crucified, 
nor is it exaggerated. It has been observed by the 
painter at a moment of the world when the results of 
brutal or ingenious cruelty could be seen without going 
out of his way. 

The "great Crucifixion," as it is named, by Man- 
tegna, now in the Louvre, recalls some of the half-ancient, 
half-classical feeling of the other, still greater Italian. 
In it the beautiful landscape counts for much, and also 
the beginning of a serious study of every part which 
marks Mantegna perhaps too much, for we have almost 
nothing from him wherein he has let himself go. Here 
the thieves are represented, one more suffering than the 
other. The soldiers cast lots, the centurion looks up ; 
all of that is relatively commonplace, but the old Mother 
held up by the women is worthy of his fame. 

A hundred years before, the painters had already 
begun to represent the passage of the souls of the good 
and bad thieves, the one to angels and the other to 
devils, and Gaudenzio Ferrari has beautifully echoed 
for us the cry of despair of the angels. 

The hymn of the "Stabat Mater" deeply impressed 
the minds and hands of artists, and .it was evident that 




THE CRUCIFIXION. (Giotto) 



THE CRUCIFIXION 299 

the sorrow of the Blessed Virgin must be told. When, 
however, the painters too often allowed her to fall 
into the arms of her friends, theologians found such a 
misapprehension of the courage and love of the Mother 
of Christ unworthy, but nothing could take this away 
from the wish of the painter and beholder. The moment 
came when more was necessary to relieve the mind than 
the mere story, and Fra Angelico opens the world of 
mystical painting. His crucifixion is evidently a sermon ; 
the Christ recalls Giotto, and the good monk in his wis- 
dom and from a habit of sight connected himself with 
Giotto whenever the opportunity came. The good 
and the bad thieves are each marked out, but now 
throughout the steps of the scene we have saints of the 
past and of his own day in attitudes showing their special 
character and their importance to the pious painter. 
The patron of his order — Saint Dominic — kneels at 
the foot of the cross. Learned doctors stand and point; 
Saint Francis is lost in adoration. Another weeps, 
unable to behold the suffering of the Lord. 

In an earlier disposition, a group, beginning with 
Moses and Saint John, takes the other hand, but the 
realistic story of the suffering of the Mother occurs in the 
centre of the painting. She stands supported by her two 
faithful attendants, and her arms, spread out, have been 
seen perhaps in actual nature, they are so true to the 
physical agony of the heart giving way. Before her, 
turning her back to us, with a passionate gesture worthy 
of artists less calm than the sweet monk, Mary Magdalen 
throws herself against the Mother, half upholding, half 
imploring, wholly pitying her. We see her from behind 
a long line of gracious figures, and we must guess at what 



300 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

her expression would be if she rose. The great picture 
is, as we said, a sermon, but a tender one, and one realizes 
the happy life of the saintly artist in his cloister, absorbed 
in the contemplation and the love of the Lord. 

An old man kneeling is Jerome, whose cardinal's hat 
lies on the ground beside him. A picture of the church 
appeals to Him who is our strength against the tempta- 
tions of this life. The great and learned doctor is confi- 
dent and contemplates. Two bishops stand behind 
Jerome ; one is sometimes called Ambrose and the other 
Augustine. Augustine writes and meditates. Ambrose 
seems to follow the text wherein the Prophets have 
foretold what now is there. Then three founders of 
orders kneel ; Saint Dominic, Saint Francis, and Saint 
Benedict. Over the face of "the poor beggar of Christ" 
spreads an unspeakable yearning, as if to take upon 
himself the sufferings of the Lord. Benedict weeps, a 
hand covering his eyes, for in his order the sufferings 
of Christ have left the greatest marks. Behind them. 
Saint Bernard stands ; Bernard, whom Dante saw in 
paradise with his own eyes. Then Romuald and John 
Gualbert. They express in their look of abstraction the 
sorrow of their lives. 

Then we close with two more of the Dominicans. 
Peter Martyr kneels. Upon his head are the wounds 
which opened to him the sight of this mystery. And then, 
still further back, Saint Thomas Aquinas, who has written 
of and explained sin and Redemption.^ 

* The writer from whom I have taken the names of the assistants explains the red- 
ness which covers the sky of the painting (a matter usually attributed to changes 
in the blue) to a recollection of the poet Dante when he tells us how heaven looked 
at the moment of the death of the Lord. 



THE CRUCIFIXION 303 

Later the learned artist Perugino, who, we know, 
was perhaps unjustly accused of not being a true believer, 
has spread before us the result of his Umbrian training. 
We begin to enter the learned world of beauty wherein 
the tragedy will be lost. Still, with other more Northern 
artists, as with Luini in the great page of fresco at Saint 
Mary of the Angels at Lugano, and in Ferrari's at Varallo, 
we shall have the lyric outburst. Luini has filled his 
painting with the scenes of the Passion as if seen from 
a distance. They follow a long procession, as if several 
stories were happening at the same moment. Sepa- 
rately, they are both beautiful and ingenious. Far 
above in the mountain we see the Lord kneeling alone 
while His apostles sleep, and an angel ministers to Him. 
In that ingenuity referred to, the forms of the sleepers 
are reflected on a wet space. Further down, the out- 
rages to Christ, the insults, the bearing of the Cross, 
the procession of the soldiers, the thieves and the Mother ; 
and then, to the right of the Cross (we will return to 
the crucifixion itself), the Christ extended on the knees 
of the Mother, upheld by John, is embraced by the 
Magdalen, while Joseph and another friend prepare the 
shroud. Incidental figures all about belong more or less 
to the story. On the right, within a marble hall, again 
Thomas kneels before the Lord in a last good-by, which 
is repeated far up the hill on this right-hand side by 
the kneeling crowd of apostles witnessing the Ascen- 
sion. 

To the traveller, coming from Northern paucity to 
the wealth of Italy, this page of what seems infinite de- 
tail is a surprise and a relief. Knowledge and joy and 
feeling and sorrow ; the whole of the Italian nature and 



304 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

habit and learning is spread out upon the beautiful 
wall, injured somewhat by time.^ 

The Christ is placed high above, a noble figure 
fastened to the Cross, the face bent just a little, almost 
in sleep ; around him is a chorus of weeping angels in 
the dark sky. In that sky one sees the spirit of the good 
thief carried off by angel hands, and on the other side a 
devil fastens upon the struggling soul of his companion. 
The figure of each thief on either cross shows the learn- 
ing accumulated in Italy. The science of anatomy, 
and the instruction and influence of the great Leonardo 
had turned the world of painting into one of greater 
splendour than that in which we now live. Then be- 
low, in the foreground, the motley crowd, the men on 
horses, the executioners and soldiers, the Pharisees on 
the glistening mules which distinguish them from the 
Roman cavalry, — in fact, all the story. The struggle 
for the coat ; — the realistic, ugly scene is made beautiful 
by that training of the Leonardo environment. John 
stands by the foot of the cross absorbed in the contem- 
plation of his Master. The Magdalen kneels with arms 
outstretched in an agony of feeling. The Mother is about 
to faint, or perhaps has fainted, but still stands upheld by 
her women. Further away the usual crowd, men and 
women, wonder what is happening. 

In our superiority as foreigners we pass over a work 
of art which is beyond the power of any modern man, 
nor do we know enough to realize that it is not the work 
of the greatest man of his time. 

* Here and there appear the marks of the under painting, giving us some explanation 
of the economies necessary to the moment when ultramarine blue was handed sepa- 
rately to the artist by the givers of the painting. 



THE CRUCIFIXION 307 

Signorelli is a man whom it was once rather the fashion 
to forget ; a grave and somewhat disagreeable painter and 
draughtsman. He has painted terrible scenes ; the 
Last Judgment, the waking up of the dead, the consterna- 
tion of the damned, and the joy of the elect ; and he 
has also shown existence on earth previous to that as the 
reign of anti-Christ, a beautiful moment where only a 
few suffer. In his great painting at Orvieto we have the 
portrait of his friend Fra Angelico. Signorelli, as I say, 
has been neglected. In his life he was not fortunate, 
and we may remember how he had to borrow from 
Michael Angelo, whose letter we have. Perhaps he was 
not so far away from the great master. Twice he has 
painted the Crucifixion, with little regard to tradition, 
as if for himself or the donors. One which we now see 
as a picture was made for the banner of an order, the 
Brotherhood of the Holy Spirit at Urbino. It was 
to be painted on both sides, and its value was to be 
judged by some master painter. Signorelli, who was more 
frequently called Luke, has given us the Christ already 
dead, alone on the Cross, which comes otit strongly on the 
azure sky. The learning of the artist shows in the drawing 
of the Saviour, whose body stiffens while the legs part, a 
detail extremely rare. The Magdalen stands by the 
Cross with arm and hand passed about it. On either 
side, the two centurions on horseback look up as they 
guard the dead body. One of the soldiers points care- 
lessly, perhaps in insult ; the other one looks from 
under his hand with an appearance of compassion. 
Below the Cross the Mother is stretched out, dead to 
everything. Two of the pious women have taken charge 
of her, but she is oblivious of all. Other women about 



3o8 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

her look down in pity, and then, a little apart, Saint 
John, quite young and quite Italian, looks up in absorbed 
contemplation. Far back are men and horses, and a 
solemn landscape with buildings. It is a wonderful 
painting from the mere fact that it is not large, only 
about forty-five inches wide ; a poetic and learned work, 
which was studied carefully by the great Raphael, who 
has imitated it. 

On the other side of the banner the master painted 
the Descent of the Holy Spirit, but of that we need make 
no further record. 

He painted another banner for the town of Citerna, 
and it was again for a brotherhood. It is said that it 
was given by him in thanks for the care given him in the 
hospital retreat next to the little church, but, as often, 
that story is uncertain. 

Jesus is again dead on the Cross. Again we recognize 
the master in anatomy. The same point is insisted upon — 
the bending of the legs so that we see the cross between. 
Every detail is slightly different from the other repre- 
sentation. Again the Mother has fainted below, and is 
stretched out on the ground, her head resting in the lap 
of one of the women, who lifts the Virgin's veil to give 
her air. Her right hand rests listlessly in that of one 
of these good women, a beautiful touch of observation 
from nature. John stands behind them looking up, 
absorbed in the past. On the right, another holy woman 
— which one is not indicated — looks up also in quiet 
compassion. An ancient man gazes at the Cross and the 
Redeemer. (He is the patron of the brotherhood, who 
asked that he should be represented as Saint Anthony.) 
In the distance the later story is told.; the three crosses 



THE CRUCIFIXION 311 

are there in the distance, the Christ already taken 
down, while the other crosses keep the bodies of the 
thieves. 

A still more singular Crucifixion, also somewhat passed 
over, was known under the name of another painter for 
a long time. It came from the Florentine convent of 
Santa Maddalena and its special and separate meaning 
may, of course, belong to some particular request or 
need. Here in a field with flowering plants, Christ, al- 
ready dead, half hangs, Jialf stands, because supported 
by the bracket to which the feet are nailed. There 
is the same curious detail of belt, of hair, and of arrange- 
ment of the crown of thorns, which we know elsewhere, 
and also the same representation of a powerful man. 
The Christ half slumbers in death. The great arm of the 
Cross, with the inscription above it, cuts against the 
sky. At the foot of the Cross kneels the Magdalen in 
sorrow and expostulation, as if appealing against such 
a monstrous crime. At the foot of the Cross a skull 
indicates Golgotha and serves also to help the mas- 
ter's composition. That is really the story, but 
further back two different scenes are told. On the 
elevated slope we see the apostle Peter denying the 
Lord to Pilate's servant, who, turning away from us, 
invokes the testimony of another man, and we recognize 
their unbelief in the protest of the apostle. Far away 
again, on the top of a hill, the Virgin lies fainting, while 
the divine Body is taken down from the Cross. Then, 
a little further down, the Body of the Lord is carried, 
followed by the Mother and John and some compassionate 
women. Meanwhile, also, Peter sits in despair in a 
corner, in repentance of his cowardice. A great depth of 



312 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

distance, probably copied more or less from the spaces 
that Signorelli actually looked at, stretches behind the 
scene. It was also thought that the very flowers spread 
all about have a meaning, as has everything in this re- 
markable painting. 

We might call up the North again and remember that 
Albert Diirer has not carried out in his engraving of the 
Crucifixion the success of so much of his work. The big 
painting, with all manner of strange events, is still not 
complete, but very near the representation. The single 
figure of the Crucified, with a suggestion of landscape 
below, is also disappointing. Van Dyck (in Berlin) is 
partly terrible and partly commonplace. Rubens gives 
us a great painting which we cannot forget. We have 
passed entirely out of the ancient world, and he has said 
good-by both to the past and to the future. His arrange- 
ment is, however, full of good sense, as may well belong to 
a master whose balance of mind is perhaps the greatest 
ever known in art. He has managed to bring the crosses 
into some perspective, so that what after all we see is 
the Christ, whose powerful body hangs partly fastened 
in unreal pain, but with the illusion given by the splendour 
of knowledge. The picture, which has part of the nature 
of the heavy Fleming (who is also a great man), gives 
us the head of the Christ, dead or almost so, and con- 
temptuous of death. The head droops down, the beard 
falls on the chest ; around Him are the terrible figures 
of the thieves whose legs are being broken by the execu- 
tioners. Mary Magdalen protests In fear as Longlnus, 
high upon his horse, pulls up to drive his lance Into the 
body of the Lord. John leans his head upon the shoulder 
of the weeping Mary, not more grieved than Is neces- 




THE CRUCIFIXION. (Signorelli) 



THE CRUCIFIXION 31S 

sary to recall the story. Such is the power of art that 
this mistaken effort shall always be remembered. 

Van Dyck gives us the mere crucifix ; very beauti- 
ful, because the loneliness of the figure, looking up 
to heaven, is a part of the story. One need not insist 
upon the beauty of the landscape and cloud of the 
learned and graceful artist, the favourite of men and 
women. 

Far different is the painting of Velasquez ; the Christ 
is almost standing and the head hangs down, the face is 
scarcely seen, and a few streaks of blood pour from the 
wound. We have elsewhere spoken of the Spanish crav- 
ing for emotion of a physical kind, and of the answer to it 
in the figures of the Crucified. And then, these are 
paintings not for the idle public, but, in some cases, for 
convents or churches or private owners who wish some- 
thing more than a mere portable crucifix. We must 
never forget that some of the great masterpieces are 
nothing but business answers to business needs. 

Again comes the sketch of Rembrandt. Here the 
story is told of other days, and also to interest himself, 
for the singular appreciation of the Old and New Testa- 
ments, the contrast between the synagogue and the 
Christian belief, is equally felt, as if balanced, as it 
were, in either hand. This is a picture of Jewry. The 
Jews disappear from the scene. They may be believers 
or unbelievers. Some argue; we see the movement of 
their arms, and we can distinguish the face of the re- 
flective and sensitive man who turns away, as well as 
the hard outline of the priest. The sense of punish- 
ment, of exile, of passing away, is extraordinary with 
these people, who are, as it were, banished. The two 



3i6 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

near the front may be believers or may not ; we hesi- 
tate, but they fly. The Cross is far back ; the Christ 
looks up. Indistinct as the sketch is, the appeal of the 
face is visible. At the foot of the Cross are grouped 
Mary Magdalen, perhaps, and some other Mary. One 
is embracing the Cross ; the other has turned from us 
stretching out her arms. Mary the Mother has fainted, 
and we see her taken care of by some women. Behind 
them is the group of the insulters, "wagging their 
heads and saying : 'Thou that destroyest the temple, 
and buildest it in three days, save thyself, and come 
down from the Cross.'" These figures are mere out- 
line, but all the meaning of contempt and insult is 
there. On the contrary, the soldiers are indifferent, 
all except Longinus, who has left his horse and kneels 
before the Saviour. But one figure remains to be 
explained — two perhaps. Who is that woman lying 
prone upon the ground, all wrapped up but for two 
trembling hands extended ; and then above her another 
woman who bends in sympathy with open hands ? 
Is that Mary Magdalen ^ Carried out further, it might 
have been one of the grandest of all expressions. Then, 
in what we call Rembrandt's special power, the light 
comes from far above, in the centre of the scene. 
The Cross of the Christ, the twisted forms of the 
thieves, all the mass of horses and men and people who 
belong to the story, are bathed in this light. On one 
edge the Pharisees and Jews pass away into the shadow. 
The light of Rembrandt has made this a triumph and the 
glorification of the Crucifixion. The little sketch is 
greater than almost any one of the great paintings. 
Alone, perhaps, the doctrinal Angelico has given us a 




THE CRUCIFIXION. (Velasquez) 



THE CRUCIFIXION 319 

similar sensation, not by what he has done, but by what 
he has suggested. 

It is many years since I was in the Alsatian city of 
Colmar where my friend Bartholdi was born and has left 
his mark. The museum there has a Crucifixion by 
Griinwaldt which is a nightmare of reality. Done in 
the North, it would have met the Spaniard in savageness, 
were it not that, awful as it is, it is a statement, not an 
exaggeration of the devout. 

The Christ in the centre of the picture is very near 
us, so that we are almost on Him, and his Cross passes 
out of our vision into space below. The Cross is a rude 
thing hurriedly chopped out. Its transverse branch 
bends with the weight of the Crucified, who hangs livid, 
torn, and bleeding from the rods whose ends still remain 
in the wounds. The nailed hands at the end of out- 
stretched and lengthened arms claw the air in stiffened 
death. The knees are turned in, and the feet are a dis- 
torted mass of blood and muscles. The very nails of 
the feet have turned blue within the curve of the forced 
twist which holds them by one great piece of iron. The 
head of the Christ hangs on one side, crowned with many 
thorns ; the eyes are closed, the mouth gapes. The dead 
man is there. Had he seen such or invented Him ? 
We do not live at a moment that gives such horrible 
sights, but the artist did. 

At the right of the cross are the Virgin, Saint John, 
and the Magdalen. Saint John, a young man, very 
young, like some student, holds up the Virgin by her 
waist and strained arm. She, dressed in a white cloak, 
has fainted, white as her dress ; her lips move, disclosing 
her teeth. Although unconscious, she tries to stand, 



320 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

bending forward. It is like a photograph from life. 
At their feet is the Magdalen in wild distress, bent like 
a bow, with hair dishevelled, a veil through which we see 
her eyes that notice nothing. The fingers of her hands 
are crossed and entangled. Why she is so small is a 
mystery, but perhaps it is only one of the cases of a 
painter changing his mind as to proportion. 

On the left of the cross (our right), stands John the 
Baptist, holding an open book and pointing to the cruci- 
fixion. His book says, "It is necessary that he should 
increase and I diminish." 

The Saint John is savage ; perhaps he may have been 
created as a type of the desert. At any rate, he draws 
us into the picture of the Christ and the three others. In 
the distance is a river, and night is coming on. 

This formidable painting echoes the words of Saint 
Bona venture : 



"Chastised as a base and unpardonable criminal, they accom- 
panied him out, and after he had put on his clothes, they hurried him 
away, and loaded him with the heavy wood of the cross, which meas- 
ured fifteen feet in length ; thus he was hurried along by an enraged 
mob, in company with two thieves, who were condemned to death ; 
these were his companions in suffering. Wherefore, as the prophet 
Isaiah saith, 'You are not only numbered with evil doers, but are 
used worse than they. Your patience, O Lord, is unspeakable.' 

" His blessed and afflicted mother, seeing that she could not get 
near him, on account of the great concourse of people which pressed 
about him, went, with Saint John and the rest of her companions, 
a nearer way, to the end that she might meet him at the winding 
of the street. And when she perceived him coming, bowed down 
with the heavy load of the cross, which before she had not seen, she 
was like one beside herself, and half dead with grief, so that she 
could neither speak to him, nor he to her, by reason of the furious 




DETAIL FROM THE CRUCIFIXION. (GrUnwaldt) 



THE CRUCIFIXION 323 

mob which hurried him along with great violence and compulsion. 
After, however, he had gone a little way, he turned to the women 
that followed, weeping, and said : 'Ye daughters of Jerusalem, weep 
not for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children,' as is further 
contained in the gospel. And in these two places were erected two 
churches in memory of these things, as they report who have been 
there and seen them. And as Mount Calvary was distant from the 
city, he was so tired and faint that he was not able to carry his cross 
the whole way, but fell down under it with exhaustion. The wicked 
executioners, not willing to defer his death, lest Pilate should revoke 
his sentence, as he had before shown some inclination to release him, 
compelled one Simon, a stranger, to carry it for him, and Jesus they 
led unburdened the rest of the way, but bound like a thief, to the 
place of execution. 

" From the hour in which he was first taken in the night, till the 
time of his being crucified, Christ was in one continual combat, and 
endured numberless reproaches and injuries, sorrows and detractions 
innumerable, and suffered the most cruel torments among them. 

" When the Lord Jesus was now come to Mount Calvary, then 
he was extended upon the cross, as it lay upon the ground, and 
nailed fast to it. Still to add insult to the pangs he suffered, he was 
crucified between two thieves, and loaded with derision, contempt, 
and reviling from all parts. Some blasphemed him, others shook 
their heads, and said, 'Fie on thee, thou art he that wouldst destroy 
the temple of God, and build it up again in three days. Others he 
saved, himself he cannot save : and if thou be the Son of God descend 
now from the cross, that we may believe.' All this was acted in the 
presence of his afflicted mother, who stood near the cross. Thus 
stood the doleful mother beside the cross of her son. 

" There were also with our blessed Lady the beloved disciple, 
Saint John, and Mary Magdalen, and the two sisters of our Lady, 
Mary of James, and Mary of Salome, and other friends, standing 
under the cross, who all, but especially Mary Magdalen, the beloved 
of Jesus, were very sorrowful, and wept bitterly, and could no ways 
be comforted, because of the pains of their beloved master : for their 
sorrow was renewed with his, in the words, or deeds, which were 
said or done to him. 



324 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

"The Christ spoke seven times, as is written in the Gospel. 

"And then our blessed Jesus began to fail in his sight, after the 
nature of dying men, and grew faint and languid, sometimes closing 
and sometimes opening his eyes : and bowing his head first on one 
side, and then on the other, till being quite spent, and life failing, 
he recommended his soul to his Father, crying out with a loud voice, 
the seventh time, saying, 'Father, into thy hands I commend my 
spirit.' With which he yielded up the ghost. 

"At this strong and vehement cry of our Lord Jesus, a centurion 
who was standing by was converted, and immediately said, 'Verily, 
this man is the Son of God' ; because he heard him cry so loud when 
he expired." 

And now we come to a dangerous passage in art. A 
glorious painting of Tintoretto will serve as an intro- 
duction to the modern view ; and as to this very painting 
we have the documentary story of its influence within 
a short time, for Velasquez studied it, and his great 
picture, known as the Lanze — "The Lances" — is the 
final record of that especial grouping and movement 
of the attendant soldiers. Van Dyck also has left us 
his studies, not used in his shortened life, and to us 
their every detail agrees with previous representations of 
inherent cruelty in the mechanical work of military 
obedience or legal enforcement. 

The executioner who ascends the ladder to the Cross, 
brings up to us the same horror of his indifference. We 
know who the august Victim is, and we shudder again 
as the brutal ladder rubs against Him. He is All in All ; 
and yet nothing but the ordinary criminal executed. 
Hardly does He differ from the two thieves. Even the 
group of the mourners gives way to the story as it appeared 
to the artist's inner sight that day. That is a fact of 
nature; our memory will perhaps call back that when 




DETAIL FROM THE CRUCIFIXION. 



(Grunwaldt) 



THE CRUCIFIXION 327 

we were looking at the picture what we saw most was 
a red cloak just before us on the grass. ^ That to our 
memory is the picture, as it would be in real life, and one 
of the most realistic of all paintings carries with it the 
lesson of the invisibility of the great motive or purpose, 
and the power of the momentary or accidental or usual. 

One feels, as in all Tintoretto, how deeply the Church 
holds these souls, whether, like him, they lead an existence 
of hard work, joyously carried, or like Veronese, or even 
Titian, apparently enjoy all there is of life. 

We might put into our list now the Crucifixion pictures 
which will be henceforward in the possession of the vast 
m.ultitude, like the crucifixes to hang on neck or wall. 
Little engravings, even if signed Albert Diirer, will carry 
to any home the work of art used as a sign. Very late, 
even to-day, the Spanish woman will confess to gloating 
upon the little tortured image she half hides. It is partly 
a physical sensation, partly a reminiscence of special 
"devotions." For the struggle, too big for me to describe 
or analyze, is now in full force ; the Church is fighting 
the Reformation in both spiritual and temporal domains. 
Many of the paintings now, especially of Venice the reason- 
able, and Spain the fierce or dreamy, will have politics 
in reality for their basis. Only the Spaniard, however, 
will be absolutely successful in carrying out the real 
meaning. Rubens may praise the triumphs of his beloved 
Jesuits, Titian at the end will give us the vision of glory, 
wherein the ruler of Spain and all the Indies recognizes 
the powers which have given him help and to which he 
owes dutiful obedience. 

* The uncoloured print does not give this note of colour sufficiently. 



328 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

It is a fighting world glorified, and it is only Jack 
Spaniard who can, in certain places, cause to pass into 
whatever he has to plan, for show or splendour or the 
devotion of the community, his own fierce or sweet per- 
sonality of sensation. 

Titian has some personal emotion, as who can avoid 
feeling on seeing his dead Christ carried off by His 
people in sorrow ; it is great because it is true and 
beautiful, but it is not especially our Christ. Nowhere 
in the well-balanced nature of the great Venetian is 
he torn by the importance of his subject. One turns 
more easily to such wondrous balance as he expressed 
in "Christ and the Tribute Money," where Justice is 
enthroned. 

Let us go back again suddenly and sympathize with 
far-away people who have felt the agony of the Cruci- 
fixion. There are absolutely Teutonic examples as terrible 
as anything of Spain ; the suffering of the Madonna 
(I mean, in German words, of Our Lady of Sorrows) 
and the distress of the disciple John are so expressed as 
to typify such anguish for ever. 

When we turn to Central Europe, the mediaeval charm 
encompasses us ; but not with the Crucifixion. The 
saints are barbarous at first, and then so refined that we 
feel more and more confident that Eastern Greek influ- 
ences, perhaps actual teachings, have allowed the sculptor 
at Rheims to rival the Greek. How shall we choose ? 
The majesty of the wondrous Christs of the French cathe- 
dral porches will never be equalled. The "Beau Dieu" 
of Amiens is well named. 

The "Elevation of the Cross," terrible in its realism 
as treated by Rubens, is known to us.; the swaying of the 



THE CRUCIFIXION 33 1 

crucified body, the strain of the arms, the shrinking of 
the tortured v/aist under the grasp of the executioners ; 
and also we know the horror of what is foretold by the 
great painter's skill, the shock which the Victim shall 
feel as the Cross is dropped into its socket ; — and yet, 
notwithstanding all these accuracies of horror, the main 
appearance of the marvellous painting is one of triumph 
and glory. Part of it may be owing to the knowledge 
of form and the splendour of drawing and in the actual 
painting the splendour of colour ; but the great lines of the 
Cross, supplemented by the adjusted lines of the men who 
lift it, is too great an artistic invention not to be a triumph. 
Music has these moments. Indeed, as we know musical 
description and appeal in most of the great compositions, 
the sound of triumph goes through the mass of sound, 
fills every empty space, and leaves us no longer in the 
ordinary sense of life but in a created atmosphere. So 
in this example of what indeed is sometimes called the 
musical expression in painting. 

For we are late in the world now. Only the personal 
religious feeling of the very great Rubens saves his paint- 
ing from being mere art. The times are nearing when the 
feeling of the motive will disappear. Only a great man, 
or an extremely sensible one, will be an exception. There 
is also little or no more struggle as to the rulings of 
the Church, although Calvinism or other Protestantism 
may stir the sea of thought or discipline, and always of 
politics. Rubens himself has escaped from the poor 
name of his father in religious circles ; all that has faded 
into acquiescence, and the Jesuits encourage the great man 
and his disciples and followers and surrounding admirers, 
who return all fourfold and fill churches, chapels, and 



332 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

books with records in praise of the saints who have been 
chosen. 

We are far off from our Italians — though this comes 
from Italy in doctrine and partly in training. 

Something, as I said, is gone, not to return — but 
the Church has triumphed. 




THE ELEVATION OF THE CROSS. (RubensJ 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE DEPOSITION AND ENTOMBMENT 

There is a name given to certain representations 
connected with the story of the Passion, that of the 
"evening" images or pictures, because they tell us the 
events of the evening after the Crucifixion. Of all these, 
the most important is the Deposition, or taking down 
from the cross. All the Gospels refer to this moment. 
In art, the subject was not treated early, but when once 
begun every religious feeling and artistic possibility in- 
spired the ambition of the painter or sculptor to take 
advantage of the subject, from the religious element, 
which has more or less been kept to, and also from that 
human sentiment which has necessarily accompanied 
the idea of the death of the beloved and the grief of 
the survivors. Therefore, in this moment of the story 
of Our Lord, His Mother became a necessity, a pivot of 
the artistic disposition, as in the earlier moment, with 
greater scriptural reference, she became one of the sup- 
porters of the Cross with Saint John, The references 
to her in the Gospels are few or merely assumed, but we 
feel that we cannot separate her from the story ; she 
typifies the feeling of all mankind, and if we refer to 
the story itself we understand that its words describe 
her as living a life composed of two impressions — 
joy and sorrow. As an illustration of this meaning 

335 



336 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

we may take a representation of the Christ and His 
Mother, a sculpture attributed to Michael Angelo, but 
very little known. It is in the Refuge of the Poor at 
Genoa. There is nothing but the head and shoulders of 
the Virgin, with a hand of hers pressed on the chest of 
her Son. The beautiful head of the Christ lies on His 
Mother's shoulder, and He is just not alive. He has 
passed away. No sign of pain whatever are upon Him ; 
merely the closed eye and the slightly open mouth. 
The Mother is no longer young. Life has acted upon 
her face, and the movement of eyes and lips rep- 
resent a habit of sorrow, and of care of others, such 
as might belong to some saintly helper, some sister or 
mother of charity. As a bit of design, we must admire 
the wonderful running together of all the lines — a 
masterpiece of ornamental meaning. Whether Michael 
Angelo's own hand has worked throughout upon it, I 
do not know the work sufficiently to judge, but the refine- 
ment of expression, if carried out by other hands, is not 
to be attributed to any but a sculptor of great skill. 

Byzantine art gives to the Virgin a heroic grandeur 
necessary to the meaning of her watching at Calvary, the 
tomb of Christ. She is represented in tradition as having 
gone to find the disciple whose sepulchre was to be 
borrowed, and wherein the body of the Saviour was placed 
at her request. So she was described also as helping 
to take Him down from the Cross ; helping to take out 
the nails and placing them in her bosom, and giving to 
Joseph of Arimathea the shroud in which the body should 
be placed in the tomb redolent of myrrh. Another legend 
represents her as receiving the weight of the body while 
Nicodemus takes out the nails, and she kisses her Son's 



THE DEPOSITION AND ENTOMBMENT 337 

hands. So is she represented in some early pieces of 
ivory, where one sees her taking the hand of her Son, with 
the other Maries next to her, and in a later sculpture at 
Milan she lifts the hanging arm and hand of her Son as 
if to kiss it. In that ivory, the beginning of a great 
understanding of the full meaning of the human figure 
may come from some tradition of Southern Italy, bringing 
in a memory of the antique. Nicodemus, who stands 
just against a conventional Cross, lifts entirely the body 
of the Lord, with an action as true as any later skilful 
artist, with his great intelligence, shall be able to repre- 
sent. Then below we fall back on a bit of realism half 
useless with this amount of conventionality, but interest- 
ing in giving a homely effect — there is a small ladder on 
which the right foot of Nicodemus is placed. Meanwhile, 
some saintly person, clad short for work, takes out the 
nails from the feet, which have been nailed to a wide 
support. Saint John weeps on one side — a primitive 
and stooped figure. Above, two angels, whose bodies 
are half classical, fit into and finish the conventional outline 
of the Cross. The undeveloped past mingles suddenly 
with the development of the future. In another moment 
of art we shall pass to a work of Nicholas of Pisa at Lucca, 
wherein Mary and John each take an arm of the dead 
Christ, lifting it carefully and bringing the beloved mem- 
ber to their lips as they weep. Each separate figure has 
a distinctive character, so that one knows that Mary 
makes no sound while John is audibly weeping. Joseph 
of Arimathea, a noble and heavy and elderly man, passes 
his arms around the falling body and takes it upon his 
shoulder. The sculpture is in every way the promise 
of the great art that is to follow, and at the same time 



338 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

it brings up our much repeated impression, — that of 
the persistence of ancient art carried from Southern Italy 
to the Northern and more Gothic lands. 

This poetic treatment, that is so full of tenderness, 
ends there. A more logical and reasonable art shall 
reign. In an ivory at Ravenna, the lower division holds 
the future treatment of the subject. Innocently bar- 
barous as it is, it has the human statement fully made out. 
The bed of the Christ, that is to say, some form of rock 
probably, with a conventional drapery, holds Him 
stretched out, and His Mother presses her face against 
His and closes her eyes, the two faces almost making one. 
She lifts His head with one arm, the other being round 
His body. Joseph has stretched out the dead figure ; 
the Maries and the other actors of the drama stand about, 
weeping perhaps. Angels dip down from the sky, and 
each presses around the body with a drift of passion. 
On this treatment the representation will be based for 
centuries. We may take as a type the painting of 
Giotto in the chapel at Padua, so often referred to by us 
in our following of the story. There he gives us the 
Mother, her arm supporting the head of the Christ 
stretched out, or rather her arms around His neck, 
seeming to watch still for a sign of life in the face closed 
to any more expression. The women lift each hand to 
kiss or hold. Others, grouped about, are rather silent 
or adversely noisy in expression. John throws out his 
arms in an ecstasy of grief. It is as if he had rushed in 
suddenly. Joseph of Arimathea waits with a shroud 
drawn around him. Above, angels sweep through the air 
in excited circles of grief and surprise. 

At every moment the individuality of the painter or 



THE DEPOSITION AND ENTOMBMENT 339 

the sculptor breaks loose, except perhaps in the case 
of Fra Angelico, whose comprehension of the scene is 
pious and complete. Part is incongruous because of the 
portraits of friends of his beginning to be introduced in 
the more modern way, and also, in many cases, because 
they were the givers of the works. In his paintings 
the Christ is draped, and the helpers lower Him or receive 
Him, or hold Him up. We have the beginning of the 
pictures we shall consider later. In various ways the 
holy women group around the Madonna, who kneels 
almost by herself. Mary Magdalen kisses the feet. 

And again in a more quiet painting Angelico has given 
us the outstretched body, the Mother, like some pious 
nun, embracing the Son, sweet women and saints gathered 
around, and above them the foot of the cross and a bit 
of a ladder. Very beautiful, very quiet, with much senti- 
ment, but not much more than a record. Were it not 
for the special effect we must always get from the work of 
such a devout soul, the painting would fall below the 
ordinary rank of his work. 

In most violent contrast are the images of the story 
as told by Donatello, in sculpture now at South Kensing- 
ton. Shrieks of anguish seem to come from the figures 
of the bystanders surrounding the Mother and her Son, 
who is supported by her. Her face is distorted by grief. 
The women tear their hair, and spread out the joined palms 
of their hands in protest, while the great tresses of Mary 
Magdalen's blond hair float furiously about her. John 
alone keeps quiet by himself. Otherwise, it is one wild 
protest against the crime committed, and also against the 
mere horror of death. 

In the pulpit of San Lorenzo in Florence a similar 



340 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

ferocity of general grief beats through the astounding 
artistic representation. Masterpieces they are, beyond 
the reach of any but a genius not only of the first water 
but of extraordinary capacity in every direction. There 
is no problem in representation which is not met and 
solved by the sculptor ; so much so that in certain lights 
they look like paintings. The landscape with its buildings 
takes a look of distance. A great ladder of wood stands 
up distinctly, a worn bit of much used necessity. On the 
crosses hang the thieves, evidently with broken bones. 
The guards of Rome have not yet left. Some of them 
move away. Meanwhile, around the Christ rushes the 
entire chorus of the weepers, arms tossed up, hair torn ; 
here and there a more quiet figure, but all combining in 
some shape to express the general complaint of human- 
ity and also Italian passion. Nowhere else on earth 
has any such extravagance in art been carried out, and 
yet the reality of actual fact is like that. Any one 
who has seen, as I have, fierce distress in certain types 
of the Southern world will find these arrested, as it were, 
in bronze or in marble, — only one does not easily meet 
in the realities of life such a number of creatures equally 
carried away by pain and indignation and surprise and 
sorrow. 

At the same time, these sculptures of Donatello are 
miracles of handling, as, for instance, that of the shroud 
in one of the divisions. Every line of drapery is masterly, 
and the boldness, the sense of the thing actually happen- 
ing, is astounding. In one of these panels — and there 
alone, I believe, in the whole field of art — Christ's head 
has no longer been supported, and it slips back against the 
Mother and her face. 



THE DEPOSITION AND ENTOMBMENT 343 

A similar fever is seen again in a fragment of Ver- 
occhio, a lesser man, but one of great skill and great 
talent. There again the women shriek or rather remon- 
strate, but the angels floating above are not so wild, 
and the body of Christ is like that of some beautiful young 
man. 

Then Italian art begins to be gentle and mild. Peru- 
gino has given us twice a result of beautiful balance and 
proportion, and, as Vasari says : "He made there besides 
a landscape which was held at the time to be most beau- 
tiful " ; but Vasari rightly speaks of the Maries who, 
around the dead Christ, "instead of weeping (In the 
Italian way), look upon the dead with admiration and 
extraordinary love." The other Italians follow, less and 
less violent, less tragical. Francia gives us the Mother 
holding the Christ In peace. An angel holds His head ; 
His eloquent body Is asleep. The Mother looks upon Him 
with quieted face. Later, the greatest of Italians shall tell 
the story in three different ways, but It Is better perhaps 
to take them up as they can be brought together. Per- 
haps he may have spoken to Sebastian, or given him the 
sketch, or In some way made him great for the moment, 
for Sebastian del Piombo has recalled In the landscape, 
where only Mother and Child remain, the evening of 
tradition which fills the canvas. The Mother sits apart, 
as if alone with her grief, and prays. The body, stretched 
out. Is of course a manly form inherited from or given by 
the Influence of a great man. A noble treatment of the 
subject by another Italian, Signorelli, gives us the Christ 
as half asleep, the Mother tenderly looking at Him and 
supported or encouraged by the loving John. NIco- 
demus holds up the body of the Christ as if to show Him 



344 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

to His Mother. We have another of the same sculptor 
where the Christ is so brought down that He is, as it 
were, on two ladders, a difficulty which comes up even 
with the ver}^ great artists. It may be hardly worth 
mentioning except as a curiosity of art. The Vene- 
tians give us grand and noble representations, and 
Tintoretto shows us the Mother fallen into a swoon from 
sorrow, supported by one of the women, while the Christ 
in her lap has dropped away into the arms of John. In 
Venice we have again another great man at work on the 
subject of death and the lesson of the Deposition as 
his last work. (Michael Angelo also bade good-by to 
the world with this subject.) We know how Titian, 
at the end of his long life, was still painting, and the un- 
finished picture bears the inscription that Palma reverently 
finished it and dedicated it to God. 

In the series of "evening" pictures occurs occasionally 
the carrying of the body of Christ to the tomb. Donatello 
has represented it, using (from an antique sarcophagus, 
or more than one) the body of Meleager carried by the 
other youths. Raphael gives an image of marvellous 
refinement — a proof, as it were, of how far the art he 
employed could reach in the purity and sweetness and 
elegance which his mere name implies. Beautiful is 
the dead body and the Magdalen ; and the head of the 
Christ, who seems but half asleep, and admirable also 
is the group of women who uphold the fainting Virgin. 

In the Deposition, the body is often watched and 
prayed and wept over by the friends, or else by the single 
figure of the Madonna. The latter is known by the 
Italians as a " Pieta," but the word is technical, and out- 
side of Italy has no real existence. 



THE DEPOSITION AND ENTOMBMENT 345 

A moment ago we spoke of the carrying of the dead 
body and the connection of some antique fragment 
of pagan tragedy imitated somewhat by Donatello. 
There the body is carried to the tomb. There is of the 
subject a beautiful etching by Rembrandt, "The Entomb- 
ment," which, although perhaps as far as anything could 
be from the eloquence of Raphael's story, is still a rev- 
erent treatment in a most realistic manner, and, notwith- 
standing that it is only a large sketch, it acts as a 
touchstone to the wonderful Raphael, — one of the prod- 
igies of Italy. One feels that the artistic position, the 
arrangement and the triumph of art, and the possession 
of some details of the knowledge of anatomy, have become 
so important with Raphael that the real story has disap- 
peared. With Rembrandt there is no graceful display 
of the action ; the men bearing the body upon the rough 
bier are really carrying the weight. Meanwhile one feels 
their sorrow. The Mother is close to them, but of 
necessity not taking any part. She merely looks down 
on the dead figure whose legs hang out of the stretcher 
of the bier. All but Joseph are average persons ; the 
Mother's face, on the contrary, belongs to a nobler type 
than any of Rembrandt's mothers. 

With him we are at the end of the general possibili- 
ties of the religious story. Here and there, of course, 
there will be, must be, astounding exhibitions. We shall 
see them come down even into the nineteenth century, 
usually appearing where we do not expect them, while, 
on the contrary, the professional attempts are failures. 

As we return to earlier work, in comparison with the 
more beautiful but not more appealing examples of 
Southern art, we meet here and there extraordinary in- 



346 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

dividual expressions — such as that in the Louvre, an 
ivory group of three figures, in which Joseph carries 
alone the body of the Christ. The head and shoulders of 
the Saviour fall over the back of the man of Arimathea. 
He has as much as he can do in bearing this weight. 
The arms of the Saviour hang down ; one is lifted by his 
Mother, who walks behind and somewhat below the two 
men. Joseph probably is stepping up to some entrance 
of the tomb. The representation of the Madonna is 
quite equal to that of the Italians of the end of the 
thirteenth or beginning of the fourteenth century, but 
the face has that curious incapacity for a full rendering 
which marks the Northern Gothic after it had passed a 
little from its connection with the older teachings. It is 
a point difficult to state, because the slightest exception 
will contradict it, but we know what we mean when we 
remember something lacking in representations otherwise 
wonderful both as to form and artistic disposition, and 
continuing to us the antique, which is otherwise so 
little connected with the pure mediaeval — with the 
thirteenth century, for instance. But as we have seen 
elsewhere, we know that either ancient tradition or con- 
nection with some particular past, bring out so close a 
connection at certain moments that there are fragments 
that could pass as Greek. We have been slow in recog- 
nizing the fact, and it is only within a very few years that 
the archaeologist or the artist has had the courage to 
assert this, all the more that the best examples occur in the 
triumphant cathedral of Rheims. There, the images of 
the Annunciation and the Visitation give this ; a broken 
fragment might well pass for the work of more than a 
thousand years before. These traces are here and there 




THE DEPOSITION. (French Ivory of the XIII™ Century) 



THE DEPOSITION AND ENTOMBMENT 349 

throughout Europe, but in the average habit of classifi- 
cation which we all have, we cannot help thinking of 
nationality as distinct, whether in the first stages of 
human development or later ; and we have also a way 
of ignoring a possible change of locality. Quite as much 
as in our moment of easy transit, the artist of the Middle 
Ages and of later time travelled through Europe. The 
Frenchman built and carved in furthest Norway and 
Southern Spain, in Poland or Central Europe, and even 
pushed into Italy among characters not ready to be 
taught by minds of less tradition. The converse is not so 
until very late. The Northern man comes down into the 
South, as long ago his ancestors, the Goths. We see 
sculpture upon Spanish cathedrals which may or may not 
belong to the soil, as regards execution, but which had 
the direction of foreign guidance. 

Our present subject is necessarily affected by the 
ecclesiastical necessities, and the strong feeling of the 
Northern races. In the church of Xantin, in Rhenish 
Prussia, the Germanic heaviness is quite in place, and the 
sad figures of the women mourn far back in the mystic 
shadows, while elderly men dispose the meagre, flattened- 
out body of the Christ upon the shroud for burial, and 
Mary Magdalen, so dressed as to show that she has not 
always been so serious, is disposed in the foreground with 
that terrible expression just referred to as belonging 
to the Germanic mind. But the sculpture is deeply in- 
teresting as a promise of a change into the more modern. 
In the school of Cologne, which was supposed once to 
have originated in Flanders, where the Van Eycks 
had already appeared, we have representations of our 
subject with the character of the place. However in- 



350 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

ferior to the Italian (for example, Angelico of the same 
date), there is in this one and that one of these painters 
somewhat contemplative which suggests living mentally in 
a world of piety and of poetry. We have left the ugly and 
the commonplace when we look at them, even if we realize 
the deficiencies, more insisted upon than necessary, and 
never, as in the more favoured Southern race, cleverly 
passed over. When an Italian had to face too difficult a 
question of art he did not hesitate, but let the matter go. 
In the North the difficulty is struggled with, usually to 
the disadvantage of the artist entering into this conflict 
with himself, his ancestry, and his teaching. But one can 
understand Albert Diirer's attempt to get some teach- 
ing and instruction at first from the Rhine, and later in 
Italy, for Diirer is another example of the travelling 
student, and goes from one place to another for many 
business reasons, but among others to get some secret 
(as he calls it, some "secret of inspiration") from Man- 
tegna, or from the Northern men. 

There was still the tradition of the teaching of Saint 
Bonaventure, who, writing about 1300 (he was born 
in 1 221), lays down in his "Contemplation of the Life 
of Christ" a precise form of arrangement suitable to 
the Deposition. He says: "Consider carefully and 
deliberately how Jesus was taken from the Cross. Two 
ladders were placed against the arms of the Cross at 
each end. Joseph mounts that on the right of the Sav- 
iour and endeavours to draw the nail from the hand. 
This gives him much trouble, for the nail is thick and 
long and deeply buried in the wood, and it does not 
appear that it can be drawn without cruelly pressing the 
hand of the Lord. The nail being taken out. Saint John 



THE DEPOSITION AND ENTOMBMENT 351 

makes a sign to Joseph to give it to him, so that Our 
Lady may not see it. Nicodemus then draws the nail 
from the left hand, and also gives it to Saint John. Then 
Nicodemus descends and begins to take the nails from the 
feet ; while Joseph sustains the body of Our Lord. Happy 
Joseph, who deserved thus to embrace Him ! The right 
hand of Jesus remains suspended. Our Lady lifts it 
with respect, carries it to her eyes, caresses and kisses 
it while inundating it with tears and uttering mournful 
sighs." This last phrase reminds us especially of that 
little figure of the Louvre, but the tradition of Saint Bona- 
venture's arrangement has more or less affected all of the 
representations, even until very late. We must not forget 
that the question of the nails had a certain importance, 
as we have seen in the representations of the Crucifixion. 
With Fra Angelico, a sentry holds the crown of thorns 
and the nails in his hands, and shows them with sorrowful 
gestures to several other figures. This action of showing 
or looking at the nails seems somewhat of a conceit, 
seldom becoming the occasion, but it had a purely devo- 
tional meaning at one time, separate from the work of 
art, or else it pointed to some variation in dogma, if 
one can so use the term, — perhaps religious sentiment is 
a sufficient expression. The entire subject of the Descent 
and Burial, and, as the Germans call it, "The Weeping 
over Christ," was increased towards the sixteenth century 
by the interest in the Holy Places and the worship of the 
Sepulchre, and by the greater facilities of intercourse, so 
that many of these representations are more or less wrought 
on by these outside influences. The Northern men 
especially have made a point of it, notwithstanding that 
they were less successful, and there is something in their 



352 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

manner of looking at the subject which implies a very- 
strong interest. As, for example, in the " Descent from the 
Cross " at the Escorial in Spain, attributed to Van der 
Weyden, wherein, against an artificial background, the 
Christ is held up by the two older men, the women 
weeping, while the' fainting Madonna is supported by 
Saint John and one of the Maries. 

Perhaps the best type of not over-realistic represen- 
tation is the great painting by Quentin Matsys at Antwerp. 
The Calvary fills the distance. Two of the crosses still 
bear the bodies of the two thieves ; the third in the 
middle is empty. Two women at its foot gather the 
blood of the Christ which has run down the stem. Near 
or below them two men are seated ; one takes off his 
shoes, the other takes out some food from a basket and 
eats. A third, at a distance, descends the back of the 
hill, carrying a ladder. On one side Jerusalem is seen ; 
on the other, in the side of a rock, the space opens in which 
the body is to be placed, and under its vault, near an 
old man, a woman holds a light for a servant girl who 
sweeps the ground. All these facts of ordinary life 
are in terrible, cruel contradiction to what is happening, 
just as in our sorrows everything goes on, indifferent to 
us. We feel the pain of the subject all the more in this 
epic of reality because of that background of indifference. 

In the foreground Jesus is stretched on the death sheet. 
Nicodemus kneels and lifts the body, holding it under the 
arms ; Joseph of Arimathea holds the Saviour's head, 
and draws together, with care and pity, the torn skin of 
the forehead. He wears a rich dress, partly Oriental in 
pattern. Nicodemus, solemn and bearded, is clothed in 
a long garment. Behind them a man with Turkish dress 



THE DEPOSITION AND ENTOMBMENT 355 

and turban holds the crown of thorns and looks anxiously 
over the others. In the centre is the Virgin, clothed in a 
long robe, and on her head a hood that covers hair and 
ears, like a nun's coif. She kneels with folded hands. 
Behind her John bends over, watching with careful hands 
lest she faint. Near him Martha gives a sponge to Salome, 
about to wash the bloody hands of Christ. Near her 
an elderly woman, the mother of James, weeps, and Mary 
Magdalen wipes again the feet of the Lord with her 
hair. Each one of the actors in the drama has a special 
expression to fit his character. The Virgin's face has 
the swelled change which weeping gives. Her eyes see 
nothing; they are almost closed. Her lifted hands 
seem to tremble, as her body balances in her effort to 
contain herself. This is the greatness of the painter ; it 
is really the Mater Dolorosa whom we see, and John looks 
after her who has become his mother from the Cross. 

The Saviour is at the end of suffering. The body has 
given way, as have the cheeks — the eyes are closed, 
but still not quite, and the swollen lips are still wet, like 
the beard, with drops of blood. The painting calls for our 
pity, as it also expresses the pity felt by the actual be- 
holders of the scene. 

In the series of the Passion by that not too serious 
painter Tiepolo (the last descendant of sea-going people 
in that Venice so well described, to its disadvantage, 
by Casanova or Des Brosses), we are conscious of a mind 
touched by the story, and treating it from knowledge and 
observation and with a wonderful human tenderness. 
Moreover, the purely artistic treatment is singular, 
novel, and important. In his " Descent from the Cross " 
the body, supported by two men, each on a ladder, is 



3S6 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

slowly coming down toward us. We see the face to some 
extent clearly, though the long hair falls around it and 
leaves only part exposed ; a noble face, and almost un- 
touched by death, as if He had but fainted. He is so 
supported that one arm seems to be almost placed by 
Him over the shoulders of the men lifting Him, which adds 
something of friendly tenderness to them. On one side, 
just as a fragment of the design, we see the end of 
another cross with the arm of one of the thieves. At 
some distance back there is a third cross, to which are 
hung two arms, with a hanging head below — another one 
of the victims. All that is as realistic as that late school. 
We are high up, and we look down on certain witnesses ; 
the horse of a Roman soldier is partly seen, and some 
Jewish head, explainable as we please. Just before us 
lies the Mother, still young, in a faint, supported by John 
or leaning against him ; he looks up to the descending 
body with some doubtful expression of countenance, but 
with hands nervously telling the pain of the moment. 
Mary seems to slip into the repose of absolute forgetful- 
ness. One arm lies in her lap, of which we only see a 
part, for, as I have said, she is so near to us that the 
picture does not take more than this lap, hand, and face, 
wrapped up in the drapery of a Venetian. With the 
Entombment again, the realist and the sentimental artist 
join in one. The Christ is all bent up with the necessary 
lifting. One hand still lies on His waist ; He is all but 
naked. His face is quite bared ; He is asleep, but unto 
death. The two helpers carry Him reverently and lower 
Him into the tomb with the shroud already blessed. In 
a moment He will be wrapped and passed in. We see 
the Mother, who is unable to bear it, and has turned away. 



THE DEPOSITION AND ENTOMBMENT 359 

So with some Mary, just visible. Above, two cherubs, 
like little birds, flutter in a Venetian manner rather gay 
for such a scene. 

One can understand how, with this subject, the artist 
has occasionally, like Titian, bade good-by to the world. 
Thus Alonzo Cano, in Saint Jerome's Church at Grenada, 
places the Entombment over his own resting-place. The 
Christ lies at full length on a richly ornamented tomb, 
rendered as the Spaniards have always been able to 
carry out their ideas ; a realization so complete as to 
appear the actual fact ; a noble figure, and all the others 
of equal beauty, though the two men who are about to 
lower Him are represented in some costume that we feel 
has been absorbed from Judsea, and which has a certain 
strangeness often given by authenticity. Both Saint 
John, far back, and the two Maries attend the Mother, 
who appeals to heaven. She closes her eyes in a half 
swoon, supported by her two beloved friends — her 
adopted son and one of the Maries. 

A similar gesture, but of his own imagining, is that 
of the mother in the Mary and Christ of Delacroix. She, 
too, appeals to the infinite mercy and help, but also she 
asks if ever grief was like to hers. With this modern 
painter, whom many of us have known, passes the last 
ray of the expression of religious feeling. It may come 
again at any moment ; we may have it all about us with- 
out being aware of it, but in the nineteenth century, except 
in an occasional flicker here and there, the great light of 
feeling has but one or two torches keeping it alive. 

The subject of the Pity Is most natural, the manner of 
expression having personal feeling in contemplation of the 
other world, and we shall see Michael Angelo closing his 



36o THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

long life with two Depositions. Earlier, as a very young 
man, he made the Madonna of Pity — which is world- 
famous and the main adornment of Saint Peter's at 
Rome, for which it was not intended, and where it is 
somewhat disfigured by bronze angels that hang over it. 
It is his church, but how far from his meaning, and how 
far from that early moment when the young man, in 
1498, closed the century and opened the future of our 
modern art with the statue. "The Madonna" (we 
quote from Condivi) "Is on the stone upon which the 
Cross was erected, with her dead Son on her lap. He is 
of so great and rare beauty that no one beholds it but is 
moved to pity. A figure truly worthy of the humanity 
that belonged to the Son of God and of such a Mother ; 
nevertheless, some there be who complain that the 
mother is too young compared to the son." Condivi 
goes on to quote the well-known answer of Michael, 
whose repartees are enveloped very often in irony, but 
whose general seriousness gives importance to anything 
that comes from that extraordinary being. Michael re- 
fers this youthfulness to the chastity of the mother, 
and says that besides being natural to her, it may 
be that it was ordained by the divine power to prove 
to the world her perpetual purity. Youth was not 
necessary in the Son ; but rather the contrary ; as it 
was intended to show that the Son of God took upon 
Himself a true human body subject to all the ills of man, 
excepting only sin ; He did not allow the divine in Him to 
hold back the human — He let it run its course and obeyed 
its laws, as was proved in its appointed time. "Do not 
wonder, therefore, that I have made the Holy Virgin a 
great deal younger in comparison with her Son than she 



THE DEPOSITION AND ENTOMBMENT 361 

is usually represented. To the Son I have allotted His 
full age." Condivi makes the remark that "These are 
considerations worthy of any theologian ; wonderful 
perhaps in any one else, but not in Michael Angelo. He 
may have been twenty-four or twenty-five years old when 
he finished this work ; he gained great fame and reputa- 
tion by it, so that already in the opinion of the world 
not only did he greatly surpass all others of the time, and 
of the times before, but also he challenged the ancients 
themselves." That is the young man's work, full of hope 
and beautiful vision, and deeply pursued for the pleasure 
of it. The commission for this work, given by the 
Cardinal Abbot of Saint Denis (called in Italy Cardinal 
di San Dionigi), is dated August 26, 1498, and was drawn 
up by a friend of Michael's, Jacopo Gallo. "Be it 
known and manifest to whoso shall read the ensuing 
document, that the Most Reverend Cardinal Saint Denis 
has agreed with the Master Michael Angelo, sculptor 
of Florence, that the said Master shall make a Pieta of 
marble at his own cost ; that is, a Virgin Mary clothed, 
with the dead Christ in her arms, of the size of a proper 
man, for the price of 450 golden papal ducats, within the 
term of one year from the day of beginning of the work." 
The Cardinal agrees to pay certain sums in advance, and 
the contract concludes : "And I, Jacopo Gallo, promise 
to His Most Reverend Worthiness that the said Michael 
Angelo will finish the said work within one year, and that 
it shall be the most beautiful work in marble which 
Rome to-day can show, and that no master of our days 
shall be able to produce a better." 

We know how Michael's last years turned more and 
more toward religion, and how much the constant relation 



362 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

with his beloved Marchioness of Pescara influenced him. 
Encouraged or advised by her, he made many drawings. 
We have some which are evidently meant for a Descent 
from the Cross or some form of Deposition, He was 
then no longer a young man to whom extraordinary 
efforts of work were natural, easy, daily occupation, 
and yet we have the record of the French student Vignere 
that he saw Michael, even at a late period, approaching 
his end, drive furiously with chisel and hammer into the 
marble, with a certainty and power such as very few 
young men could hope to exercise. He describes the 
chips of marble flying right and left under the passionate 
touch of the great old man. And we may well consider 
the degenerate art of to-day, which models in some soft 
substance, easy to work, to be cast in ugly places and then 
confided to other and other and yet other hands, while in 
the work of our great man we feel the chisel play on the 
hard substance, like the brush of the painter — some- 
times light, sometimes rough and hard — polished or not 
by the mere movement of the hand, and like the touch 
of the musician on the violin. It is in part this personal 
touch which makes these statues of Michael so impressive 
in their reality. The casts, however fine, however interest- 
ing, have to be humoured and placed in certain lights to 
bring out the meaning — the best meaning — of the work. 
For with him, as with the greatest sculptors, his sculpture 
is painting and his painting is sculpture. The two arts 
flow together. About that time he wrote, "Painting 
nor sculpture now can lull to rest my soul, that turns 
to His great love on high, whose arms to clasp us on the 
Cross were spread." 

The old sculptor intended his last Deposition for his 



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THE DEPOSITION. (Michael Angelo) 



THE DEPOSITION AND ENTOMBMENT 365 

monument. The head of Nicodemus, clothed and 
wrapped in a hood, who sustains the body of his be- 
loved Lord, is Michael's own portrait, and, unfinished 
as it is, expresses the deep emotion of his meaning. Vasari 
saw this work in progress and gives us a glimpse into the 
workshop of the aged sculptor, never content out of it, 
and spending his sleepless nights working, with the paper 
cap on his head in which he placed a lighted candle. 
We can imagine him in his vast studio, feeling his 
way around the huge half-iinished marble — a brave 
and hard-working old age. Vasari tells another anecdote 
about the Deposition. Pope Julius III sent him late 
one evening to Michael's house for a certain drawing. 
The aged master came down with a lantern, and hearing 
what was wanted, told his servant Urbino to look for 
the design. Meanwhile Vasari turned his attention to 
some alteration in the Christ, when, to prevent his seeing 
it, Michael let the light fall and they remained in darkness. 
He then called for another light and slipped forth from the 
screen of blankets behind which he worked, saying, "I 
am so old that oftentimes death plucks me by the cape 
to go with him, and one day this body of mine will fall 
like the lantern and the light of life be put out." A 
favourite expression of Michael's was this : " If life gives us 
pleasure, ought we not to expect this pleasure from death, 
seeing that it is made by the hand of the same master .?" 
This Deposition was never completed. Flaws appeared 
in the marble, and perhaps while working in the imperfect 
light Michael's chisel may have cut too deep. In his 
accustomed manner he began to break up the work, but 
very likely his servant Antonio — the successor of Urbino 
— begged what remained. With Michael Angelo's con- 



366 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

sent a Florentine exile settled in Rome bought it from 
Antonio for two hundred pounds. It was patched up but 
not worked upon, and remained in the garden of his heir. 
In 1722 it was taken to Florence and finally placed in 
the Duomo by the grand duke. There it appears all 
important, — as described by Trine the main figure of 
the entire place, — more important than even the mass of 
people in the crowded Duomo. The great cross of the 
altar looks like the Tree from which the body has just 
been lowered. So well does the line of the cross cut the 
group that we cannot help imagining that the artist 
may have wished some such arrangement.^ 

The most unfinished figure is that of the Mother, 
who partly supports and partly embraces her Son. One 
of His arms hangs across her knee ; the other over that 
of the other Mary, who also helps in holding up the body, 
along with Nicodemus. Nothing need be said about 
the beautiful lines which express the abandonment, the 
giving way of all ; Christ himself, the gentle and kind ; 
the feebleness of the old man and the half helplessness 
of the two women. 

There is another subject (or rather the same one 
on a smaller scale), which is now in the courtyard of the 
Palazzo Rondanini at Rome. One drives through the 
double gate or door towards the steps of the entrance, 
and between, in a bare and empty space, stands the 

* It is worth noting that the indifference of the Italians to works of art is as 
great as their interest in them; and as we have seen the great paintings in the 
Sistlne Chapel disfigured by the smoke of candles, so part of this work is polished 
because it has been used as a balustrade by the serving-boys, who carelessly run up 
and down the steps to light the candles. On another side, a rough metal handle 
has positively been let into the side of Joseph of Arimathea so that a clumsy boy 
may climb more easily. 



THE DEPOSITION AND ENTOMBMENT 367 

group. It was to have been another version of the group 
he gave away, and though apparently less important, it 
is also, I believe, more touching — nearer to the great 
man, and indicating a still greater emotion at the approach 
of death and an acceptance of the fact, with a feeling of 
the similar necessity for the Lord Himself. The disciple 
of Dante, the friend of Savonarola, the reader of Plato, 
the patriot, the stoic, who yet bore in his heart the sadness 
of the end of liberty in Italy, is all here. One feels him 
alone surviving, and every day more severe towards him- 
self and perhaps towards others, waiting for the call of 
the Supreme Judge. 

With the end of the thirteenth century the representa- 
tions have turned from a certain joy in the contemplation 
of life (that is to say, a knowledge of its main meaning) 
to a rendering of suffering. Herein the Passion addresses 
the heart of future men. For the simplicity of the story 
the thirteenth century is the proper moment, and the 
appearance of accepting an orderly arrangement gives it a 
sense of contentment in a world steady in religion. But 
however superior that world's position may have been, 
the world does not wait, and, right or wrong, we know 
that through innumerable generations everything must 
go on for better or for worse. If we are astonished at 
the suddenness of the appearance of Saint Francis, 
we must remember what the world was wherein he 
moved, and wherein he invoked the idea of pity and love, 
which was that of the thirteenth century, but which 
he further inspired by a passion which for ever raised 
Christianity to another plane. The phrase of Machia- 
velli comes to us : " Christianity was dying ; Saint 
Francis has called it back to life." 



368 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

For the ordinary public of the century and those anterior 
there were representations by many masters, but with the 
next movement the drama of the Passion becomes more 
and more sensitive to pain and tenderness, so that an ex- 
ternal appeal was all ready to be made through other forms 
of art, and indeed it was a painting of a Christ on the Cross 
which gave to Saint Francis the revelation of the passion 
from which he suffered so deeply that he ended by bearing 
on his body the marks of the nails which had fastened 
his Master. His pupils, his followers, the monks of his 
order, spread his sensitiveness over the world. No one 
within reach of their voice resists entirely this general 
feeling. Hence Saint Gertrude tells us how in her medi- 
tations the Lord appeared and caught up her tears. 
Throughout the Western world every detail of Christ's 
suffering and His death is followed either in verse or in 
external art. At first the descriptions and the works of 
art are gentle ; by and by the revelation of Saint Bridget 
tells us how, as we see in the pictures, the Virgin saw her 
Son raised upon the Cross and then fainted. When she 
came to herself she saw Him crowned with thorns, His 
eyes, His ears, and beard running with blood, and so in 
vision the dreamer saw the Christ walk in His own blood. 
Then we have the subject of the Descent from the Cross, 
wherein, all bloody, the dead body is placed on the knees 
of the Mother. Saint Bridget tells us how Mary tried to 
loosen this poor body, tried to cross the hands upon the 
breast, to arrange her Son in the usual manner of the dead, 
but the limbs were stiff and could not bend ; then she 
threw herself upon the face of her Son and covered it 
with kisses. When she lifted her head her face was full of 
blood. Long time she held Him, and begged to be buried 



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THE ENTOMBMENT. (Ferrari) 



THE DEPOSITION AND ENTOMBMENT 371 

with Him. She wept, so that her soul and her body seemed 
about to pass away in tears. 

The very sweet mind of Gaudenzio Ferrari has given 
us also an Entombment which I put down because it gives 
a special feeling of the North Italian, which appeals to 
us more and more as we are freed from the tyranny of 
Florence and recognize perhaps something of our own 
convictions in the Lombards or Piedmontese. The Christ 
lies on his Mother's knees as it were asleep, a smile still on 
His lips, a handsome body of the Umbrian school crowned 
with a very Germanic head, and about Him a number of 
women, all very much interested but in no way weeping, 
even if a tear roll down the face of the loving Madonna. 
The figure which I take to be that of the Beloved Disciple 
spreading out his arms has a feeling of joy and interest 
and is a curious success. A variation of that is given in 
his altar-piece at Varallo, where the Christ again has the 
same position, but leans somewhat against the Cross, and 
is embraced by a beautiful figure, the Virgin, and gently 
touched and perhaps supported by another so feminine 
that it is difficult to recognize Saint John. But then we 
know the line of sequence, we know Luini, we know 
Leonardo and that confusion of the sexes, and that at 
times there is an extraordinarily accentuated sense of 
feminine sweetness especially connected with the history 
of what we call a "school," which is in reality a series of 
influences. The painter is too charming to pass over, 
even if the actual painting be not so important. 

Twice or three times the subject of the Descent 
from the Cross has been given us by Rembrandt. In 
the paintings, and in the etching, the impression of an 
actual fact is the same as with Rembrandt always. 



372 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

The number of collated incidents brought together 
in one great unity of appearance becomes more and 
more extraordinary as the paintings are studied bit by 
bit, and yet they are but fragments in his enormous pro- 
duction, so that one can hardly grasp the possibility of 
one life having observed all the numbers of points, the 
quantities of decisions and their relative play one upon 
another. In the "Descent from the Cross" at St. Peters- 
burg, painted in 1634, photography alone can equal the 
reality of the scene. The Cross passes into the shadow of 
the night ; at its top one distinguishes the forms of two 
men helping to support the body as it slips gently down 
the winding sheet into the arms of the beholders below. 
Hardly visible as the upper figures are, we can feel their 
every action. Every precaution has been taken by 
them, and a third ladder helps to steady the descent. 
A figure hardly seen takes the body of the Christ from the 
Cross around the breast, so that one of His arms hangs 
loose. The other arm is strained from the necessary 
tension of being still held by the upper helper. A 
strong man takes hold of Him below (on some support 
not easily noticed), grasps Him around the thighs, and 
bends the helpless legs across his own strong ones. Some 
one holds a light, which throws strong shadows. An 
elderly man, with a rope around his white hair, helps to 
brace the strong lifter. A circle of others are ready to 
help further. We see an anxious face and then the backs 
of other figures. Below, in the half light, the shroud is 
being spread ready, and two women draw its folds apart. 
Further back against the ladder one of the Maries prays. 
Then suddenly, at a distance, the light falls on the Mother 
— an elderly woman dressed in a garment of the place 




THE DEPOSITION. (Rembrandt) 



THE DEPOSITION AND ENTOMBMENT 375 

and period of the painter — who, standing, faints suddenly. 
A man holds her by the waist ; another has caught her 
arm, and her fingers are spread in hysterical failure of 
control. 

A lame description this of a scene whose unity and 
look of art is the one thing visible at first. The other 
Descent of the year previous (1633) has a similar placing, 
a similar careful dropping of the poor body down the great 
sheet. Carefully the bearers receive it. Ancient figures 
look at it out of the gloom. A turbaned figure before us 
watches — perhaps Nicodemus. The shadow falls upon 
all the lower part of the picture. Above, a light, which 
may be moonlight, makes all distinct, but in the gloom 
one sees, as in Rembrandt's pictures, more and more 
detail, more and more effects, just as in nature our 
eye follows more and more the point of interest, even 
if we began by seeing almost nothing. In shadow, quite 
near us, the Virgin is standing, fainting, partly sup- 
ported by two of the women, and stretched out rigidly. 
Her head and chest and a hand are seen ; the rest is 
felt. Again, in 1642, Rembrandt sketched the meaning 
of the entire scene, with the Christ lying on the lap of 
the Virgin seated on the ground, herself supported by 
the figures all about her — men and women. At their 
feet, the curved, crumpled Mary Magdalen, her head 
buried in her hands, weeps. Behind, other figures and 
the Cross, with ladders ; and upon another cross one 
of the. thieves, and again the distant city. If finished, 
it would have been another marvel of perception, and as 
different from the other two as if invented by another 
artist. 

Rembrandt's so-called "Great Descent from the 



376 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

Cross " gives us in an etching a reversal of the painting. 
We see the same picture, as it were, from another side. 
Here, however, the rays of the moonlight fall distinctly, 
as needed by the graver. The actions are more violent, 
perhaps. Below the women wait with a shroud, but 
one can only distinguish the weeping Mother by her 
bent form covered with a hooded drapery. All these in- 
terpretations, and that of the carrying of the Christ to 
His tomb, make the subject part of the inheritance of 
Rembrandt, part of what we owe him in the history of 
art and in the special illustration of the Gospel. 




THE DESCENT INTO LLMBUS. (Sodoma) 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE DESCENT INTO LIMBUS. THE RESURRECTION. THE 
APPEARANCE OF CHRIST TO THE MAGDALEN 

The Apostles' Creed says that "He descended into 
Hell." Up to the sixth century the reason among 
Christian writers was that the Lord's visit was for 
the purpose of liberating souls, and that the souls He 
there set free were those of the righteous. The false 
gospels, of course, have given much detail, and Dante has 
illustrated the idea and fixed it for ever. With him the 
subject is terrible, but there is a sweet side to it which is 
told in the fresco of the Sodoma in Siena. ^ 

The Christ has the elegance which we must expect 
from the lessons of Leonardo, the studies and following 
of Florence, long practice in Rome, and the painter's 
Northern blood and habit of life. We never wonder at 
Raphael's liking him and refusing to destroy his work 
in the great Camera della Segnatura, and moreover in- 
troducing his portrait into the School of Athens side by 
side with his own. Is it the grace of Raphael or the grace 
of Leonardo which tells through the work of Sodoma.'' 
Certainly the Eve in the painting, as well as the Christ, 
points to these origins ; the lovely being looks tenderly 
towards the Christ, who has come to relieve not only her 
but so many others, and she presses against Adam, who 

' This has been cut out from the wall and is now in the gallery. 
379 



38o THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

folds his arms in astonishment as he looks at the bended 
form of the Redeemer. The injury to the fresco allows 
it to tell us but little of many figures once there ; we see 
part of a young man just lifted by the Lord from a sort of 
tomb, — Abel, perhaps, or some hero of the Old Testa- 
ment whom we remember as a youth, — and behind them 
the landscape of a beautiful world. The Christ holds the 
arbitrary and traditional flag, generally useless, but here 
helping him to lean as he bends over. A winged figure 
behind embraces some long-lost friend. 

The Resurrection of the Lord had been represented 
on ancient Christian sarcophagi whereon the women and 
the watchers sat at the grave. Then, long afterward 
(as late as the thirteenth century), the subject came for- 
ward again. Giotto paints it, and Fra Angelico. The 
form of the story is as simple as it could be made. The 
women have come to the tomb, which is a Roman sar- 
cophagus. One looks in, and an angel seated on the edge 
tells them: "He is not here; He has risen," and in a 
glory above appears the image of Christ, holding a palm 
in one hand and a flag of triumph in the other. He looks 
up ; and is passing away from all below. In the corner 
of the painting Fra Angelico has put a Dominican saint. 
Of course it is an abstract representation such as might 
have occurred in older work. 

Diirer has engraved it in the " Great Passion." The 
Lord is moving up in a cloud with a flag of triumph. 
The tomb is sealed with a stamp or signature, and some 
of the soldiers on watch see Him. The others are sound 
asleep, and an older one wakes the sleepers. 

The Resurrection has been told. by Titian, strangely 




THE RESURRECTION. (Titian) 



THE DESCENT INTO LIMBUS 383 

and abstractly, notwithstanding the realism of each part. 
Christ stands, rising as we feel ; His shroud flows about 
Him like a cloak ; He holds a great banner in the left 
hand, and He looks up, half pointing to clouds above. 
The cover of what must be a tomb has been moved. A 
man in armour looks up ; another is waking, and one 
sleeps in the foreground, his arms and head sunk within 
his shield. 

Apart from what we must recognize as the business 
demand, the subject was one to tempt the habit of mind 
of Tintoretto, so that we have first a strange composition 
where Christ has risen, and floats in the air freed from 
His shroud, which is held up by many angels ; and He 
looks down upon the earth where angels are seated at 
the corner of the tomb and guard it gently. Behind 
them, and under the roll of clouds, a beautiful corner of 
landscape appears. Then suddenly, at the side, the 
donors of the picture — the Morosini family — appear. 
They are not part of the meaning ; only one of them 
seems in any way to notice or attend, but they are 
watched by their patron saint, who holds a great cross to 
indicate his personality. The Christ looks down to see 
him, almost as if bending over to bless the family who 
have dedicated the painting. 

Very different in intensity of emotion is the "Resur- 
rection" in the Scuola di San Rocco in Venice. Christ 
has risen, and is swung off by some mighty power, floating 
upward out of the rocky tomb into which we are partly 
allowed to see. Angels flying down with violent sweep 
pull at the edge of the cover of the tomb, and others 
kneeling help to hold it. All this is in mysterious light, 
wherein some figure reclines — perhaps a watcher. There 



384 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

is another who lies on the hard ground, with yet another 
below him. Through the opening of the cavernous space 
we look out into light and air and see the women 
approach. 

Different, again, the "Resurrection" by the Sodoma 
in the public palace of Siena. It has not the special 
Northern feeling, although he was born in Piedmont 
and therefore is frankly from the North, but he belongs 
to that wide circle which touched Rome at one spot and 
Milan at another, and took in the teaching of Florence, 
almost all under the general patronage and name of the 
great Leonardo. So in this painting we have, stepping 
out from a square-edged tomb, a Christ of great elegance, 
draped in a flowing mantle, holding the traditional ban- 
ner in one hand and raising the other in some uncertain 
gesture. He steps out upon a rock. Two little child- 
angels lean upon the edge of the tomb and look about. 
In front a soldier lies, all rolled up from his sudden aban- 
donment to sleep. Others also lie about, but one has 
waked and looks up, with outstretched hand. These 
fill the foreground. In the distance spreads a beautiful 
landscape of many details, such as would have pleased 
the master Leonardo, and along the edge of the road are 
seen the three women coming. Naturally it is a creation 
of artifice only, but a work of beauty. 

These representations are artificial in the sense that 
we have no narrative of the actual scene of the Resurrec- 
tion. Paintings have often asserted traditions as estab- 
lished facts, and have testified concerning interesting 
persons, such as martyrs or saints, the statements being 
incorrect or purely inventive, or else a commonplace 
repetition of other honorary statements. 




THE RESURRECTIOX. (Tixtor:;tto) 



APPEARANCE OF CHRIST TO THE MAGDALEN 387 

"They have taken away my Lord," she said, "and 
I know not where they have laid him." And when she 
had thus spoken she turned back and saw Jesus standing 
and knew not that it was Jesus. Jesus said unto her, 
"Woman, why weepest thou ^ Whom seekest thou ?" 
She, supposing him to be the gardener, said unto him, 
"Sir, if thou hast borne him hence, tell me where thou 
hast laid him, and I will take him away." Jesus saith 
unto her "Mary." She turneth herself, and saith unto 
Him "Rabboni" ; which is to say, "Master." Jesus saith 
unto her, "Touch me not." 

The subject is so beautiful, so simple in meaning, that 
one would think that there could be no misunderstanding 
or misreading of the text. Although Giotto has kept 
the two angels at the head and foot of the tomb within 
a few feet of the Magdalen (perhaps because of the 
temptation of composition in his long panels), her expres- 
sion is that of the most sudden surprise and abandon- 
ment. She has dashed herself on her knees as if ready 
to clasp the beloved feet of the Master. 

Later the gardener is brought in. Fra Angelico makes 
the Christ shoulder a spade, without any real excuse for 
it, and Albert Diirer has the spade and the standard of 
victory both together, but we must continuously remem- 
ber that the prints of Diirer are business matters, and that 
it is only their immeasurable superiority which hides 
the fact from us. Diirer is getting up church art for a 
growing public anxious to profit by the new inventions 
of printing and of paper. 

Raphael is more deficient than the men who were 
working about him, and his man with the hoe and the 
gardener's hat has no meaning, nor has the Magdalen, 



388 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

expostulating with Italian verbosity. But Raphael, 
too, is not over-responsible ; he feels the necessity for a 
tremendous amount of work and the little fragments have 
to be taken up as best they may be. 

One is astonished that the slow-working Poussin 
should have carried out the notion of a gardener and given 
us our Lord actually digging. The subject, however, is 
too beautiful in its actual fact and in its implied meaning 
to have often failed. 

The Titian of the National Gallery has all that we 
could wish in the suddenness of action and the beauty of 
the woman. The Magdalen of Correggio in Madrid 
has again the beauty of woman. But Rembrandt, in 
another painting which has no reference to a gardener, 
has something more important than the mere story, 
that is, the consolation given to the Magdalen by the 
Christ ; an indescribable turn in both figures tells us that 
the Lord is full of pity and is taking care of her distress 
and that she will rise another woman. 

In looking at an early bronze supposed to have been 
made about 1150 for the door of the Basilica of Saint 
Bartholomew we must remember the perpetual connection 
of the East and West at an early period, which varied, 
of course, according to places, according to wars, and so 
on ; for instance, we have the strange anomaly that far 
up in Sweden the system of weights and measures is de- 
rived from Mohammedan example. So these early gates 
come from Constantinople. A certain Byzantine taste is 
associated with the Mohammedan ; then comes more 
freedom, as in the case we speak of. 

The angel sits upon a tomb and lifts his hand to 
explain to the holy women ; above them is a little build- 




THE APPEAR.'VNCE OF CHRIST TO MARY MAGDALEN. (Le Sueur) 



APPEARANCE OF CHRIST TO THE MAGDALEN 391 

ing with rounded roof and arches, to which the women 
come. Already one distinguishes the beginning of 
handsome gesture and a certain beauty of grouping; 
perhaps this may not be so much a new movement, 
but rather some reminiscence or old tradition, such as 
this : 

"Mary Magdalen arrived first at the sepulchre while 
yet it was dark, found the stone rolled away, and returned 
back to tell Peter and John. Meanwhile her companions, 
bearing sweet spices, came to the tomb at the rising of 
the sun and found that the stone was rolled away from 
the door of the tomb, and they entered and saw a young 
man sitting on the right side in a white garment, and they 
were afraid. The angel spoke to them, telling them that 
the Lord had risen from the dead ; and they fled and 
trembled and were amazed. Mary Magdalen was left 
weeping beside the tomb, and she saw two angels in white 
sitting, one at the head and one at the feet where the 
body of Christ had lain, and they asked her why she 
wept, and she turned back and saw Jesus." 

In the story three women have usually been taken 
as the traditional number. In the earlier representations 
there comes again the apparent necessity of the guards 
being represented as there while the Maries come in and 
the angel in white addresses them. In the apocryphal 
gospel of Nicodemus, one of the soldiers who reports the 
scene says that they became like persons dead, yet they 
heard the words which the angel spake to the women. 
When it was asked of them, "Who were these women ? 
Why did you not seize them ?" "We know not who the 
women were," was the answer. "Besides, we became as 
dead men through fear." 



392 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

Already Duccio leaves out the guards. There are few 
representations, and it is a pity, for the subject has all 
the dignity in form and implied meaning that is needed 
for the continuance of the Story. 

Le Sueur was sometimes able to rise above the aca- 
demic limitations of later French art, and his "Appearance 
of Christ to the Magdalen " is a noble composition, full 
of feeling, although the grouping of the figures is somewhat 
formal and orderly. Christ stands, pointing to Heaven 
with one hand, and with the other forbidding any closer 
approach on the part of the Magdalen, who kneels with 
suppliant hands and lovely streaming hair. There are 
no guards, and the spade merely lies at the Lord's feet 
as an indication of the text. 

At the end of the images of the Appearance of Christ 
to the Women we may place the painting of Rembrandt 
at Brunswick. The Christ is in His own light, if one may 
so say, or else some special rays light Him and the face 
of the Magdalen, a face of surprise. The Christ is but 
just out of the tomb ; He stands dubiously, half covering 
Himself with the shroud, and He lifts a hand — not repel- 
lent, but as of warning — in answer to the Magdalen's 
anxious appeal. The right hand is wrapped in the cloth 
brought by her, and the vase of ointment is by her knee. 
All about them is the gentle gloom of evening ; the great 
door of the tomb is open ; we look down behind them into 
some passage or landscape seen through a natural arch, 
and above there is again the faint light of the sky where 
night is beginning. 

The effect of the picture is not to be described in words; 
this is again one of the cases where one understands how 
there is such an absolute division of the arts, — a little 



APPEARANCE OF CHRIST TO THE MAGDALEN 395 

more and the figures would be of no importance, or 
common-place; instead of which a thrill of meaning 
beats through each part of each figure, and we feel that 
each separate detail helps to make the impression that 
we receive. 



CHAPTER XIX 

THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS. THE SUPPER AT EMMAUS. 
THE ASCENSION. THE PENTECOST 

Saint Luke tells of the two who went that same day 
to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem 
about threescore furlongs. A stranger drew near, with 
whom one of the disciples, Cleopas (here appearing for 
the first and only time), conversed about the happenings 
of these days, and asked if He were only a stranger in 
Jerusalem. He made as if He would go further, but they 
constrained Him, saying, "Abide with us, for it is toward 
evening, and the day is far spent." (Peter may have 
been the other disciple, according to Origen, and art has 
inclined that way.) 

In many cases our Lord is represented in the dress of 
a pilgrim, and the Latin text says "stranger." Hence 
also the beholder is reminded of hospitality to pilgrims ; 
and that angels might be entertained unawares. There- 
fore over the door open to strangers in the Convent of 
San Marco, Fra Angelico painted the idea. We all know 
the beautiful thing; the Dominican monks welcome the 
Pilgrim whom the disciples have yet to discover. "Inas- 
much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these 
my brethren, ye have done it unto me." 

Sometimes, finally, all three of those who went to 
Emmaus are represented in pilgrim habit, and the French 
title for the subject is, "Les Pelerins d'Emmaiis." 
396 



THE SUPPER AT EMMAUS 399 

Our Lord appears thus In Saint Luke : "And it came 
to pass, as he sat at meat with them he took bread, and 
blessed it, and brake and gave to them. And their eyes 
were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out 
of their sight." 

The supper was a reminder of the sacrament of the 
Last Supper, shown in the Breaking of Bread, the first 
painting in the Catacombs, which may have been, as we 
have said, a memorial of what had happened to men 
still living. 

And suddenly their eyes were opened, and in spite of 
the altered form they recognized the truth, that He 
who was with them was the Lord. But even as they 
recognized Him, He was with them no longer. "Did not 
our heart burn within us while he was speaking with us 
in the way ; while he was opening to us the Scriptures ? " 

For the Stranger had shown them on their walk, with 
reproval for their dulness, how all through the Old Testa- 
ment, from Moses onwards, there was one long prophecy 
of the sufferings no less than the glory of Christ. "And 
beginning at Moses and all the prophets he expounded to 
them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself." 

The Supper was a most evident subject for art, and 
the natural tendency to bring in an allusion made the 
paintings fit anywhere from a church to a refectory. 

The moment chosen is always the Breaking of Bread, 
and among the Venetians we have the glorious but un- 
real painting (so far as recalling the text) of the great 
Bellini, in the Chapel of the Sacrament in San Salvatore, 
who gives, we remember, the turbaned head of his brother 
Gentile. 



400 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

By and by, as all this became allegory or polite allu- 
sion, there came up the reflection of the generous fare 
which the painter knew. To take only one instance, 
think of Titian's dinner with Aretino : 

"The first of last August," writes a Venetian scholar,^ "I was 
invited to a festival in a lovely garden belonging to Master Titian, 
an excellent and famous painter. As like draws like, some of the 
foremost men of our city were there; namely, Peter Aretino; Jacopo 
Tatti, called Sansovino; Jacopo Nardi, and I, the fourth, happy to 
be admitted into this illustrious company. The heat of the sun 
was still great, although the place itself is shady ; so that we passed 
our time, before the tables were carried outside, in looking at the 
paintings, almost living, which filled the house ; after which we en- 
joyed the beauty and charm of the garden, which stretches along the 
sea, to the first port limit of Venice. Thence one can see the pretty 
island of Murano, and other places. Hardly had the sun gone down 
when innumerable gondolas appeared on the water, filled with gracious 
young women. Songs and music came floating towards us, and 
accompanied our joyous supper until midnight, in that magnificent 
garden so much admired. 

The supper was very good, rich in delicate dishes and in costly 
wines, and the pleasure exquisite because of the season, the guests, 
and the feast itself. We were just on the point of beginning the fruit 
when your letter came to me, and when I told the company how 
you therein sang the praises of the Latin language, at the expense of 
the Italian, Aretino was quite angry, so that we had difficulty in 
preventing his making the most cruel speeches. He asked for ink 
and paper, although he had sufficiently expended himself in words; 
and after that the supper ended as gaily as it had begun." 

All this gives us the manner of life led by the friends 
of the old painter, and they passed easily into representa- 
tions of it. If anything, our painters have refrained a 
little on the side of sobriety, but the supper and dinner 

1 Francesco Pricianese. 



THE JOURNEY TO EMMAUS 403 

analogy remained, so much that Baldassare Peruzzi 
gave us what is known as the Four Banquets ; The 
Marriage of Cana ; The Pharisee's Feast ; The Last 
Supper, and the Supper at Emmaus. We can also 
understand the natural introduction of friends and dis- 
tinguished people among the architecture and accom- 
paniments which the artist saw and copied. 

Sometimes the personages are surrounded by a court 
of animals, fed from the table then and there, or favourite 
pets are introduced, as in a charming picture by Moretto, 
then pages are necessary, but are a note of still further 
impossibility. 

We are not the same to-day ; some grayness and good 
sense, due to hard pressure, has passed over us, and even 
the kindness of churchmen to Rubens and his followers 
has not allowed the irrational and buoyant mood to last. 

It was reserved for Rembrandt to give us both the 
fact and the mystery. The little painting in the Louvre, 
which I remember as shabby, is notwithstanding one of the 
few greatest pictures of the world, and we feel, as I say, 
that his Bible is the Bible. The story shows us the recog- 
nition, as if we were there. There is the disciple who, 
recognizing, joins his hands in prayer ; the other stops 
in astonishment, placing his napkin before him, and 
gazes at the Christ ; the boy sees nothing as he brings a 
plate. 

They are of earth, and properly and rightly, — but 
the central figure has passed through Death. He is 
alive, and yet — a little breath, a slight look, make all the 
difference. 

Then, once again, an etching of Rembrandt's is a 
marvel of imagination, and yet I am not sure that it is 



404 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

as sincere as the other. There is a little theatrical touch, 
if I dare so blaspheme : the Lord is gone — the dis- 
ciples and we ourselves are astounded. The bread He 
broke we see, and the empty chair. And yet so it must 
have been. 

The doubting Thomas is enshrined in all the languages 
which have known the Gospel, and his importance as 
bringing together the whole point of the actual Resur- 
rection made him an early subject for art. We need 
not recall the Byzantine; Giotto has enforced the rude 
fact ; Thomas actually places his finger in the wounds, 
although long ago there was doubt as to whether he did 
so. But the meaning of the story might require anything, 
especially if, as later, the subject was taken as an appeal 
to the doubter. In the early sculpture of Paris, says 
Diderot in "The City of Skepticism," it was used as a 
reinforcement of the truth of the Resurrection. The 
grouping of the Apostles made appeal to the artist later, 
but the difficulties of the many variations of expression 
or attitude are evident to the trained mind. 

There is a painting by Delacroix which is apparently 
little known. It is wanting both in colour and effect, a 
strange case for that artist, but the composition is fine and 
remarkable as showing his happiness in the naturalness 
of gesture and the grandness of moral expression. The 
indulgent resignation of the Lord, tender, but with a 
little indignation against Thomas, and the pitying ges- 
tures of the apostles, make a noble and adequate work. 

The other part of the text, the gift of the Holy Ghost 
and remission of sin, is not represented in art in any 
important or interesting way to my knowledge. 




THE SUPPER AT EMAIAUS. 



THE ASCENSION 407 

Breathing on them, He said "Receive ye the Holy 
Ghost. Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted 
to them; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are re- 
tained." 

"When he had spoken these things, while they beheld, 
he was taken up and a cloud received him out of their 
sight, and while they looked steadfastly toward heaven, 
behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, which 
also said, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up 
into heaven ? This same Jesus which is taken up from 
you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as ye have 
seen him go into heaven." 

Always, and very early, Christ appears in glory. In 
the fifth century, He is represented on the door of Santa 
Sabina in Rome. As giver of the new law, in gracious, 
antique reminiscence of the beauty of the pagan gods. 
He stands clothed in the philosopher's pallium, above 
the world, in a circle — a frame edged with laurel. Also 
like a philosopher He holds in His left hand a scroll 
in which His name is written in Greek. He extends an 
open, kingly hand, offering the protection of the divine 
power. Alpha and Omega, carved in the background, 
mark Him as the first and the last, the beginning 
and the end. In corners, on the background, we see 
figures which are meant for the evangelical symbols — 
the eagle, the angel, the lion, and the ox. Below, in a 
separate division, Peter and Paul lift a garland with 
a cross inscribed. A ray falls from a star above. On 
the left and right of the arched representation of the vault 
of heaven, we see the images of the sun and the moon. 
The crown that Peter and Paul, draped as Greek philos- 



4o8 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

ophers, hold up, hangs above the head of a woman with 
hands lifted and face turned upward with inquiry. That 
is the image of the Church left desolate on earth, and 
also perhaps the image of the Virgin comforted by the 
knowledge of her Son's glorified existence. 

Later, the beautiful confusion of the Church and 
Mary, each one the symbol of the other, melts away 
into a distinct representation of the Virgin. The Syriac 
manuscript of the monk Rabula, often quoted, tells the 
story between the sixth and seventh centuries. There, 
angels point out the Christ to the apostles gathered 
together. He is above in the conventional aureola, a 
philosopher again, with some gesture similar to the 
beautiful one of an earlier date, also with a scroll, also 
long-haired, but now bearded and heavy, instead of a 
youth and beardless as in the earlier work. A curious 
winged device, spotted with peacock's eyes, combines 
with strange images of the evangelical beasts and helping 
angels to support the artificial frame. Angels come 
forward, with the veiled hands of the Eastern receptive 
habit, offering crowns of glory. Below, in the middle, 
a Virgin stands with the spread-out arms and hands 
familiar to us in the representations of earliest art, a 
gesture still preserved in the manner of prayer of the 
Catholic priest of to-day at the altar, in those parts of the 
mass which retain the ancient form of words. The 
barbarous representation has new elements, and a certain 
beauty of imagination. 

The Middle Ages bring on another form of image, 
no longer of convention. Once, in some little corner of 
a manuscript, the Christ rushes up the mountain and His 
extended hand meets the Hand from, above, and even in 




THE ASCENSION. (Giotto) 



THE ASCENSION 411 

the little sketch one feels His joy and His freedom from 
earth. Angels flit about, and the little faithful com- 
pany gaze upward. The Mother now folds her hands 
and prays. 

Giotto takes the same movement and arrangement, 
and we see again the Christ passing away, freed from the 
entire world that He leaves. A chorus of angels in a mass, 
as if of clouds, praise and glorify Him. Below all kneel, 
and two angels in official garments point upward. They 
are those who said: "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye 
gazing up into heaven ?" The image of Giotto, as usual, 
carries more of the sense of reality than even the very 
beautiful later attempts. Most of them, even with 
such a master as Mantegna, have given a Christ who has 
to be treated as if not really within the simple story, 
but placed as a sort of image of Himself. The blessed 
Angelico has avoided the great difficulty of the figure of 
the Saviour while keeping all the more to the text. The 
Lord has disappeared ; some mark of cloud and shine 
(above the beautiful line of hills) tells us the meaning. 
Below, in a circle, the apostles kneel, and Mary among 
them. Some look up, all evidently unprepared ; Mary 
apparently is not surprised, and merely folds her hands. 
On either side, two angels address the apostles, one of 
whom turns around to listen. It is a simple composition 
of extreme peace and acceptance of what has happened ; 
a wonderful expression of something which is implied 
and not told. 

Of course, many magnificent representations have 
followed the two great, early men. We should consider, 
I suppose, the Ascension painted by Perugino, which was 
given by Pope Pius the Seventh to the city of Lyons. 



412 THE GOSPEL STORY IN ART 

It is an official representation, and has the necessary 
beauty of the figures of Perugino, with each character 
of the apostles carefully made out as they pose for the 
spectator ; Raphael is there, with his charm and senti- 
ment ; our Lord is posing like all the other figures, and is 
encompassed by the almond-shaped glory. 

The great Raphael designed an Ascension for a series of 
tapestries, with the same Peruginistic view as to our Lord's 
posing, but the group of the apostles is more lifelike. 

In the East the subject generally occupies the principal 
cupola of a Greek Church. Our Lord is represented 
seated upon clouds and welcomed by the angels. The 
Virgin stands below, with angels in white on either side. 

There is a bas-relief by Donatello in London, In the 
Victoria and Albert Museum, which in its general arrange- 
ment has that masterly sense of the proper place which 
the sculptor has rarely a chance to express, as he is usually 
confined to an image which is placed for him, or which he 
places as he is forced to do. Nothing tells us how much 
he has seen around it, and yet he may be a great land- 
scape designer, as Donatello was. Two or three of his 
bas-reliefs, of no apparent importance, have all the space 
and interest that any of the fullest masters of light and 
space have attempted to give. The bas-relief allows the 
sculptor to be also a painter, and in this one we see the 
back of the mountain, where Christ passes away. The 
apostles and the Virgin are on the edge, and help by their 
attitudes to give the impression of the suddenness of His 
disappearance. 

The Acts of the Apostles give the story of the pas- 
sage from the Ascension to Pentecost. Our good monk 




THE PENTECOST. (Giotto) 




THE PENTECOST. (Bordone) 



THE PENTECOST 417 

Rabula is again to be quoted. The Virgin stands among 
the apostles, who are absorbed in thought, while above 
them burns the flame of the Holy Spirit. The Dove, 
pouring down a flame of light, descends over the head 
of Mary. Giotto has seen the miracle as happening 
m a closed room, which is called in one place in the 
text an "upper room." There the apostles all sit in 
a circle, while rays of light come down upon them, 
at which they show a certain gentle surprise. Later 
Fra Angelico and others represent a house wherein are 
gathered the apostles, while below, out of doors, devout 
men of every nation under heaven move about — in Fra 
Angelico gently, with some appearance of discussion; 
in other paintings, such as those of Gaddi, with much 
conversation and curiosity. Donatello, with his usual 
ferocity, gives us a turbid scene of astonishment and joy 
and fear, wherein even the Mother trembles. At first 
the sense of Italian exaggeration comes upon us, but 
slowly one recognizes the certainty of the portrayal. This 
is a message from heaven, taking each individual in some 
sudden way, without preparation. There is also in the 
manner of some of them a reaching up as if in thanks for 
receiving the gift, which they realize. Their hands are 
spread out almost to catch it. 

Then, by and by, Titian in Venice and Paris, and 
Bordone in Milan, give, in late and perhaps over-artistic 
rendering, the apostles in beautiful poses, and the Virgin, 
more natural, because more like a woman, gracefully 
yields to the feeling of the moment, but she is no longer 
Our Lady of Sorrows or the Queen of Heaven ; the simple 
faith of the earlier day is gone. 



^HE following pages contain advertisements of 
books by the same author or on kindred subjects. 



Considerations on Painting 

LECTURES GIVEN IN TEE YEAR 1893 AT THE METROPOLITAN 
MUSEUM OF NEW YORK 

By JOHN LA FAROE 

Decorated cloth, istno, $1.25 net; postpaid, $1.37 

AUTHOR'S PREFACE 

I feel that the printing of my lectures brings with it a certain difficulty. 
Lectures intended to be read within the Museum, with a continual refer- 
ence, implied and often expressed, to the place, the objects gathered within 
it, and their associations, must have had a certain fitness which will be 
more or less diminished when they come to be read under diiferent con- 
ditions. Moreover, they were written and spoken with an idea always 
present in my mind : that I had a class of students whom I was addressing, 
and that my other auditors stood in a more remote relation to me. Certain 
appeals to my teaching, certain allusions to the practice of the students and 
to their position of relative independence and inferiority of age or acquaint- 
ance with the world, of little or no significance to my readers, are thus 
explained. 

I have not seen any way of so modifying these lectures as to suit my 
feelings and wishes in the present ; nor could I have found the time to do 
so had I seen my way clearly to that end. Even the time that I gave to 
their preparation for the Museum course had to be taken out of the hours 
of personal teaching ; and they bear the mark of a more temporary consid- 
eration on my part than would suit me had I from the first thought of 
publishing them. 

At the same time, there is always something in work done for a special 
practical purpose which through its very contexture gives a practical answer 
to many questions ; and I have hoped that with some slight modifications 
and explanations I may manage to make my readers feel that these lectures 
are for them. I need not add, I think, that there is little in these pages 
that pretends to be novel. Indeed, I should like to appeal to the memories 
stored in the consciousness of my readers, and ask if their own observation 
does not bear me out in mine. 

CONTENTS 

Essential Divisions of the Work of Art. 

Personality and Choice. 

Suggestion and Intention. 

Misapprehensions of Meaning. 

Maia, or Illusions. 

Sincerity. 

Appendix. 



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This is not a history of Greek Art. Still less is it a record 
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vious knowledge. The writer is deeply conscious of the debt 
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rescued from obHvion so much that he values, but he claims 
no part in the honor of this achievement. He has found in 
the civilization thus rescued a thing inspiring and enjoyable 
beyond any other. While sharing with scholars the regret 
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gret that the known is so inaccessible, that so few enjoy what 
he has found enjoyable or feel the inspiration which he has 
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As the title of the book implies, the subject here chiefly dis- 
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history, and it derives its chief interest to the writer from the 
fact that it so constantly reveals and interprets this larger 
fact. It is therefore the message of Greek Art, what it has 
to tell us of the Greeks, of their personality, their ideals and 
their experiences, that will chiefly concern us, rather than con- 
siderations of process or later accident. — From the Autho/s 
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The interest of Athens is perennial and the progress 
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